Effect of perceived media capability on status updates in microblogs

• This study investigates status updates from impulsive and reflective mechanisms.
• We investigate the effects of microblogs’ capabilities on urge to update status.
• Capability for relieving negative emotion has no impact on urge to update status.
• All of the other capabilities have significant impacts on urge to update status.

Compared with traditional information sharing in virtual communities, the status update in microblogs is more spontaneous and less rational. Users do not deliberately plan or arrange to update their real-time status but act in a sudden and unplanned manner. In this regard, purely rational theories, such as planned behavior and social exchange theories, are inappropriate in understanding status updates in microblogs. Hence, this study investigates status update behavior by integrating impulsive and reflective mechanisms. Specifically, a research model is built to investigate how microblog capabilities fulfill users’ media needs, including impulsive- and rational-oriented needs, and drive their urge to update their status. Online survey data from 523 microblog users in China are utilized to validate the proposed model and hypotheses. Results indicate that the urge of users to update their status is significantly influenced by the capabilities of microblogs to share unique content, strengthen positive emotion, maintain interconnectivity, and enhance unidirectional relationships. However, the capability of microblogs to relieve negative emotion does not significantly affect the urge of users to update their status.