Gratifications and Seeding Behavior of Online Adolescents

Several studies indicate that only a small minority of Web 2.0 users actively participates, while the minority do not contribute at all. This article investigates whether a similar division applies for adolescents' Internet behavior. Using Szuprowicz' (1995) typology of interactivity, we distinguish different types of user-generated content (UGC): media, narrative, and metadata UGC. Our results show a 20%-80% division between high- and low-frequency seeders. Furthermore, we utilize the uses-and-gratifications paradigm to investigate how these high- and low-frequency seeders differ in their overall gratifications obtained by WWW use. Although the gratifications' rank orders are identical for all groups, their magnitudes differ significantly. Finally, this article focuses on how these WWW gratifications can predict seeding, while controlling for socio-demographics and usage frequency.