Nothing to watch? The impact of information narrowing on over-the-top platforms' continuance

Abstract

AI recommendation systems recommend contents that based on the preferences of users, but over time, content diversity becomes limited and brings upon a phenomenon called ‘Information Narrowing’. However, there are few studies on whether information narrowing affects user perception and the continuous intention. This study demonstrates the recent phenomenon in which people feel there is nothing to watch within OTT platforms based on information narrowing theory. The study analyzes user behavior of each path on information narrowing. In addition, Netflix and YouTube Premium, representative content platforms, were analyzed respectively to compare the effects of information narrowing. The result suggests that the effects of information narrowing on perception, attitude and continuous intention was different between the two platforms. Also, the moderating effects of user preference were shown to be different. We suggest that the effects of information narrowing may vary depending on the content supply method.