1 Introduction
2 Literature review
3 Methodology
3.1 Survey design
Variables | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
Reasons for social media use before an activity: | ||
• activity planning | Categorical | Yes/No |
• travel arrangements | Categorical | Yes/No |
Influence of … on activity planning: | ||
• reviews and ratings | Categorical | Yes/No |
• photos/ videos | Categorical | Yes/No |
• proposed transport mode | Categorical | Yes/No |
Influence of … on activity planning: | ||
• reviews and ratings | Ordinal | 1–5a |
• photos/ videos | Ordinal | 1–5a |
• proposed transport mode | Ordinal | 1–5a |
Post type that would mostly affect users’ travel arrangement: | Categorical | Multiple Choice |
• a post by a famous person/ account that you follow | ||
• a sponsored post | ||
• a post by a designated account related to transport | ||
• other |
Variables | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
Changes to travel arrangements after social media use before an activity | Ordinal | 1–5a |
Changes to travel arrangements after social media use during an activity | Ordinal | 1–5a |
3.2 Survey communication
3.3 Sample characteristics and social media use
Variables | Level | % |
---|---|---|
Age | < 18 | 1 |
18–25 | 38 | |
26–35 | 36 | |
36–45 | 14 | |
> 45 | 11 | |
Gender | Female | 61 |
Male | 39 | |
Occupation | Student | 38 |
Full-time job | 51 | |
Part-time job | 6 | |
Unemployed | 4 | |
Other | 1 | |
Country | Greece | 70 |
Germany | 5 | |
USA | 3 | |
UK | 2 | |
France | 2 | |
Italy | 2 | |
Other | 13 | |
Driver’s License | Yes | 76 |
No | 24 | |
Use of public transport | Always | 8 |
Often | 22 | |
Sometimes | 21 | |
Seldom | 31 | |
Never | 18 |
3.4 Data analysis
3.5 Research limitations
4 Results
4.1 Reasons for social media use before an activity
Variables | Proportion of positive responses (p) | p-value | Test parameters relation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
W | M | W vs M | |||
Use of social media: | |||||
• for activity planning | χ(1) = 14.048 | 94.5% | 87% | < 0.05* | pW > pM |
• for travel arrangements | χ(1) = 45.006 | 76.4% | 53.4% | < 0.05* | pW > pM |
4.2 Influence of social media content on activity planning
Variables | Proportion of positive responses | p-value | Test parameters relation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
W | M | W vs M | |||
Influence of … on activity planning: | |||||
• reviews and ratings | χ(1) = 10.464 | 92.2% | 84.9% | < 0.05* | pW > pM |
• photos/ videos | χ(1) = 10.750 | 92.8% | 85.6% | < 0.05* | pW > pM |
• proposed transport mode | χ(1) = 12.234 | 85.5% | 75.7% | < 0.05* | pW > pM |
Variables | Groups | Test parameters relation | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Women | Men | W vs. M | |||||||
m | mdn | sd | m | mdn | sd | U | p-value | ||
• reviews and ratings | 3.21 | 3 | 1.217 | 2.94 | 3 | 1.440 | rW > rM | 51,934 | 0.047* |
• photos/ videos | 3.47 | 4 | 1.253 | 3.00 | 3 | 1.453 | rW > rM | 45,831 | 0.000* |
• proposed transport mode | 2.62 | 3 | 1.225 | 2.37 | 3 | 1.365 | rW > rM | 51,599 | 0.037* |
4.3 Influence of social media post on travel arrangements
Variables | Proportion of positive responses | p- value | Test parameters relation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Categorical | W | M | W vs M | ||
Type of content that would mostly affect users’ travel arrangements: | X(3) = 7.777 | 0.051 | |||
• a post by a famous person/ account that you follow | 15.6% | 6.5% | pW > pM | ||
• a sponsored post | 7.0% | 4.6% | pW < pM | ||
• a post by a designated account related to transport | 40.4% | 20.6% | pW > pM | ||
• other | 2.6% | 2.7% | pW < pM |
4.4 Comparison of social media use before and during an activity
Parameters | Groups | Test parameters relation | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Women | Men | W vs. M | |||||||
m | sd | mdn | m | sd | mdn | U | p-value | ||
1. Changes to travel arrangements after social media use before an activity | 3.48 | 0.669 | 4 | 3.50 | 0.619 | 4 | rW < rM | 21,090 | 0.983 |
2. Changes to travel arrangements after social media use during an activity | 2.86 | 0.690 | 3 | 2.84 | 0.647 | 3 | rW > rM | 22,592 | 0.926 |