Platform Affordances and Adolescent Consumer Replication Behavior for Sports Content: A Comparative Study of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram

This study examines how social media platform environments influence adolescent consumer replication behavior specifically within sports content, athletic apparel, and active lifestyles through psychological engagement mechanisms, including parasocial interaction, self-congruence, and perceived source credibility. Drawing on media ecology theory and platform affordance perspectives, the study compares users of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. To better capture the complex structural mechanics across platforms, the investigation is guided by empirical research questions rather than simple linear hypotheses. Data were collected from 402 high school students in South Korea who had experience with influencer-based social media content. Respondents were categorized based on their primary platform of engagement. The dataset was analyzed using independent-samples t-tests and Welch’s ANOVA with Games–Howell post-hoc tests to examine differences across gender and platform groups. The results indicate significant gender differences in psychological engagement and behavioral outcomes, with female adolescents showing higher levels of parasocial interaction, self-congruence, and consumer replication behavior than male adolescents. Platform-based comparisons further reveal significant differences across user groups. TikTok users reported higher levels of parasocial interaction, self-congruence, source credibility, and consumer replication behavior compared to Instagram users, while differences between TikTok and YouTube users were observed primarily in consumer replication behavior. Although TikTok users demonstrated the highest mean values across several constructs, the relatively small sample size of this group should be considered when interpreting the robustness of platform-level differences. Overall, the findings suggest that platform affordances shape adolescent psychological engagement and subsequent consumer imitation behaviors beyond mere exposure intensity. This study contributes to social media and behavioral science literature by highlighting how platform-specific environments structure psychological engagement and influence consumer replication processes among adolescent users.