Network Overlap and Network Blurring in Online Social Networks
Online communities and the online social networks embedded become a prominent medium for social interactions. The success of social media depends on usersâ willingness to continue investing their time and efforts in the absence of economic rewards, making psychological attachment critical to online communities. While prior studies identify that members do develop psychological commitment to online communities, why and how the commitment arises remain underexplored. This study focuses on the relationship between network overlap, a common feature of online social networks, and affective commitment to an online community. Drawing on the commitment theory and social network boundary theory, w…