The central purpose of this dissertation is to develop and test a theoretical model of mind wandering in a technological setting by integrating the emerging work and theory on mind wandering—a shift of attention from the primary task to the processing of internal goals. This dissertation is intended to advance our understanding on the costs and benefits of mind wandering in information systems (IS) research and in turn, contribute to the literature of cognitive IS research. Understanding the consequences of mind wandering in a technological setting is imperative because mind wandering plays a vital role in influencing various outcomes associated with technology use and/or technology learning, such as technology anxiety, software self-efficacy, and task performance. This dissertation is composed of three essays which examine the determinants and consequences of mind wandering and focus of attention on a number of emotional and cognitive outcomes. A multi-method approach (i.e., online survey and laboratory experiment) across three essays is used to test the research models. Essay 1 focuses on developing the measurement items and estimating the impact of mind wandering on users' emotional outcomes (i.e., technology anxiety and users' satisfaction). Drawing upon the content regulation hypothesis of mind wandering, the content of thoughts …

The increasing demand for mobile apps is out the current capability of mobile app developers. In addition, the growing trend in smartphone ownership and the time people spend on mobile apps has raised several opportunities and risks for users and developers. The average time everyday a user spend on smartphones to use mobile apps is more than two hours. The worldwide mobile app revenue increase is estimated to grow 33%, $19 billion. Three quarter of the time used on mobile apps is solely for using game and social networking apps. To provide more customized services and function to users, mobile apps need to access to personal information. However, 80% of mobile apps put people's information privacy at risk. There is a major gap in the literature about the privacy concerns of mobile device users in the context of mobile apps. This dissertation addresses one fundamental research question: how does individuals' privacy change in the context of mobile apps? More precisely, the focus of this dissertation is on information privacy role in individuals' and mobile app developers' protective behaviors. We investigate the information sensitivity level influence on mobile app developers' emphasis on privacy across mobile app categories. The results show information …

Ubiquitous computing results in access to vast amounts of data, which is changing the way humans interact with each other, with computers, and with their environments. Information is literally at our fingertips with touchscreen technology, but it is not valuable until it is understood. As a result, selecting which information to use in a decision process is a challenge in the current information environment (Lu & Yuan, 2011). The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate how individual decision makers, in different decision contexts, determine when to stop collecting information given the availability of virtually unlimited information. Decision makers must make an ultimate decision, but also must make a decision that he or she has enough information to make the final decision (Browne, Pitts, & Wetherbe, 2007). In determining how much information to collect, researchers found that people engage in ‘satisficing' in order to make decisions, particularly when there is more information than it is possible to manage (Simon, 1957). A more recent elucidation of information use relies on the idea of stopping rules, identifying five common stopping rules information seekers use: mental list, representational stability, difference threshold, magnitude threshold, and single criterion (Browne et al., 2007). Prior research indicates …

Online users struggle with different concerns whenever they use information systems. According to Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001), there are three important categories of concerns for online users: privacy concern, third party fraudulent behavior concern ("system security"), and online website fraudulent behavior concern ("security"). Kim, Sivasailam, and Rao (2004) proposed a similar categorization for web assurance dimensions. They argue that online websites are supposed to address users' privacy, security, and business integrity concerns to decrease user concerns. Although several researchers tried to answer how different factors affect these concerns and how these concerns affect users' behavior, there are so many ambiguities and contradictions in this area. This Essay I in this work develops a comprehensive map of the role of online privacy concern to identify related factors and categorize them through an in-depth literature review and conducting meta-analysis on online privacy concern. Although users have concerns about their privacy and security, there is still growth in the number of internet users and electronic commerce market share. One possible reason is that websites are applying assurance mechanisms to ensure the privacy of their users. Therefore, it could be an interesting research topic to investigate how privacy assurance mechanisms affect users concern and, …