Purpose

Online dating services have been growing rapidly in recent years. However, adopting these services may involve high risk and trust issues among potential users toward both online dating services and the daters they introduce to users. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived benefits vs risks, and trust vs distrust affect user adoption vs non-adoption intentions toward using this rather controversial information and communications technology in the context of online dating.

Design/methodology/approach

Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the research model using data from a survey of 451 single individuals.

Findings

The results indicated that perceived benefits play more essential roles in adoption, while perceived risks affect non-adoption more. Individuals' trust in online dating service predicts a major portion of the variation in user benefit perceptions, while distrust in online dating service and in daters that users might select significantly influence perceived risks. Moreover, benefit and risk perceptions can mediate the impacts of trust and distrust on both adoption and non-adoption decisions.

Originality/value

This study extends theories of decision-making in the use of controversial information technologies such as in the case of online dating. It investigates the coexistence of various trust and distrust beliefs as well as benefit and risk perceptions, and their different impacts on adoption and non-adoption in online dating services.

中文翻译：

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决策悖论：网上约会的采用与不采用的好处，风险，信任与不信任

目的

近年来，在线约会服务得到了迅速的发展。但是，采用这些服务可能会给潜在的用户带来在线约会服务和他们介绍给用户的约会者之间的高风险和信任问题。本文的目的是调查在在线约会的背景下，使用有争议的信息和通信技术时，感知到的收益与风险以及信任与不信任如何影响用户采用与不采用的意图。

设计/方法/方法

结构方程模型被用来评估研究模型，该模型使用了451个单身人士的调查数据。

发现

结果表明，感知利益在采用中起着更重要的作用，而感知风险对不采用的影响更大。个人对在线约会服务的信任度预测了用户收益感知差异的主要部分，而对在线约会服务和用户可能选择的约会者的不信任会极大地影响感知风险。此外，收益和风险感知可以调解信任和不信任对采用和不采用决策的影响。

创意/价值

这项研究扩展了有争议信息技术的使用中的决策理论，例如在线约会。它研究了各种信任和不信任信念以及利益和风险观念的共存，以及它们对在线约会服务中采用和不采用的不同影响。