This study investigated the bystander effect by examining intentions to intervene in simulated Facebook Live scenarios. A 4 (number of other viewers: 0 vs. 4 vs. 49 vs. 224) x 2 (level of urgency: non-urgent vs. urgent video) between-subjects experimental design was conducted with 210 participants to examine how the number of bystanders and the perceived urgency of a situation influence self-reported bystander intentions. With individual empathy levels controlled, an ANCOVA test revealed no significant main effect of the number of other viewers on the intention to intervene, but a significant difference was found between the 0 and 224 viewer conditions. Urgent situations elicited higher intervention intentions compared to non-urgent ones, without an interaction effect with viewer number. With the number of other viewers and urgency level as separate independent variables, mediation analysis found patterns differing from the traditional five-step bystander intervention model. These findings enhance our understanding how bystander intentions manifest in social media contexts and highlight the influence of perceived danger and audience size. The implications for online bystander behavior and future research directions are discussed.

Applying self-determination theory, this study investigates how users’ tracking behaviors relate to self-determination in the use of smart wearables, which enhances their intrinsic motivation (i.e., enjoyment) to use the device across age groups. An online survey with 494 smartwatch users aged 18 to 76 shows that the frequency of fitness data tracking is positively related to competence, autonomy, and relatedness needs fulfillment; only need for autonomy is positively associated with enjoyment. Age moderates the mediating effect of autonomy on the relationship between tracking fitness data and enjoyment. The findings are discussed from theoretical and practical perspectives.

Smart wearables are revolutionising how users communicate and acquire information. Yet, the user benefits of smart wearables largely depend on the devices’ ability to collect and analyze a large amount of user data, shaping smart wearables-privacy paradox. The current study explores user responses to the smart wearables-privacy paradox through a survey with smartwatch users (N = 494). Using a cluster analysis method, we identified three distinct groups of smartwatch users – ambivalent, benefit-oriented, and neutral – based on their responses to the smart wearables-privacy paradox. The ambivalent users, who exhibit high levels of both perceived benefit and privacy concerns, were the largest group, followed by benefit-oriented, and neutral groups. We found that the ambivalent users, compared to the benefit-oriented users, tend to be young, male and highly educated, and to show high levels of technology self-efficacy and smartwatch usage. However, the ambivalent users displayed less positive attitudes and a lower continued intention of using the smartwatches than the benefit-oriented users.

Advances in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) have made it possible for everyday objects to attain agency. However, it is unclear how laypersons perceive the increasingly active artifacts. These perceptions are likely to foreground their future responses to IoT objects as they become relevant actors in the physical world and begin to influence everyday user experience. We conducted an in-depth interview study to investigate individuals' knowledge, attitudes, expectations and concerns relating to IoT technologies. Findings show that affordances such as interactivity and modality can be reconceptualized in order to enhance user perceptions of relatedness with the objects. Different from technology-centric and user-centric approaches, the paper suggests a balance between human agency and object agency by adopting a need-oriented design paradigm when building an integral, self-adjusting, user-relevant archetype of IoT.