Structural Equation Model Analysis of Taiwanese Teenagers’ Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Live Stream Watching

Abstract

This study employs 490 junior high school students, 926 senior high school students, and 1416 junior-senior school students in Taiwan as the research subjects, and applies a watching live streams questionnaire for teenagers, an Internet celebrity worship scale, live stream watching behavior scale, Internet celebrity following behavior scale, and a problematic live stream watching behavior scale for testing, and the data are analyzed by structural equation modeling. The results show that: (1) 60% of junior-senior high school students in Taiwan like using their mobile phones at home and watching live streams by themselves, most of them watch live streams at zero cost, and mainly watch e-sports live streams and star live streams; (2) Internet celebrity worship can positively predict the live stream watching behavior, Internet celebrity following behavior, and problematic live stream watching behavior; (3) live stream watching behavior can positively predict Internet celebrity following behavior and the problematic live stream watching behavior; (4) the Internet celebrity following behavior can also positively predict the problematic live stream watching behavior. Finally, the results of this study are discussed, and suggestions for schools, adolescents, and future research are put forward.

Keywords:

• Internet celebrity worship
• Internet celebrity following behavior
• live stream watching behavior
• problematic live stream watching behavior

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. As well, I gratefully acknowledge the research grant (MOST 109-2410-H-212 -004 -SS2) from the Ministry of Science and Technology Foundation of Taiwan.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest for each author including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, and patent applications/registrations.

Additional information

Funding

The research grant obtained from [MOST 109-2410-H-212 -004 -SS2] from the Ministry of Science and Technology Foundation of Taiwan.

Notes on contributors

Fu-Yuan Hong

Fu-Yuan Hong is a professor at The Center for Teacher Education, based at the National Taiwan Sport University in Taiwan. His research focuses primarily on issues associated with adolescent educational psychology and technology use; for example, perceived emotionally painful events, academic optimism, mobile phone and Facebook use, and addiction.