Supplemental material.pdf

Despite global aging and pervasive use of algorithmically-driven mobile applications, the influence of simultaneous and combined attitudinal components on elderly users’ adaptation to these platforms remains understudied. To this end, this study conducts an online survey to obtain quantitative data on why and how Chinese elderly users adapt to news aggregators. The results show that both cognitive (perceived control) and affective (perceived enjoyment, fear and fear) attitudinal components directly affect elderly users’ positive (exploration to maximize or exploitation to satisfice news aggregators’ benefits) and negative (explore to revert from or avoid news aggregators) adaptation behaviors. This study enriches and advances existing literature by examining the combined effects of cognitive and affective components on elderly users’ positive and negative adaptation behaviors towards algorithmically-driven platforms such as news aggregators. APP developers can also benefit from the study to profile users and understand their patterns of engaging with algorithms-based technologies.