User activities in peer-production communities have mainly been examined under the assumption that individuals are rational individuals who are always cognizant of what they are doing and why. We argue that not all use is the same; while some behaviors are governed by conscious motivations, others may be a habitual response that is developed out of routine. We take a more granular approach to explaining what people are doing in online communities and how motivations and habits explain their use of specific features. In the context of the peer-production community Everything2 we employ both server log data and self-report, finding that habit is a non-conscious-driven behavior that is more associated with less cognitively-demanding tasks than content production.

One of the biggest challenges faced by social media sites like Wikipedia is how to motivate users to contribute content. Research continues to demonstrate that only a small percentage of users contribute to user-generated content sites. In this study we assess the results of a Wikimedia Foundation initiative, which had graduate and undergraduate students from 22 U.S. universities contribute content to Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework. 185 students were asked about their participation in the initiative and their intention to participate on Wikipedia in the future. Results suggest that intentions to continue contributing are influenced by the initial attitude towards the class, and the degree to which students perceived they were writing for a global audience.

It can be difficult for social media users to tell who is paying attention to what they post. As producers of content, Facebook users make assumptions about who will be part of their intended audience. However, when the same user's role shifts to that of consumer, the criteria for consumption depends on factors outside of the original producer's control. This creates a gap between producer intentions and consumer behavior; producing content that is actually consumed by one's intended audience is neither guaranteed nor easily confirmed.

A consistent theoretical and practical challenge in the design of socio-technical systems is that of motivating users to participate in and contribute to them. This study examines the case of Everything2.com users from the theoretical perspectives of Uses and Gratifications and Organizational Commitment to compare individual versus organizational motivations in user participation. We find evidence that users may continue to participate in a site for different reasons than those that led them to the site. Feelings of belonging to a site are important for both anonymous and registered users across different types of uses. Long-term users felt more dissatisfied with the site than anonymous users. Social and cognitive factors seem to be more important than issues of usability in predicting contribution to the site.