Title: Why people discontinue using smart wearable devices: an integrated benefit-risk perspective

Authors: Shin-Horng Chen; Cheng-Kui Huang; Wan-Ching Cheng

Addresses: Department of Information Management, National Taipei University of Business, No. 321, Sec. 1, Jinan Rd., Zhongzheng District, Taipei City 100, Taiwan ' Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, 168, University Rd., Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, Taiwan ' Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, 168, University Rd., Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, Taiwan

Abstract: With the vigorous development of science and technology, people have increasingly relied on the convenience of emerging technologies in recent years, making wearable devices one of the fastest-growing and popular products. However, after enjoying these devices for a while, there may be multiple risk and benefit considerations, affecting the users' intention to stop using them. Although there are many studies on the use intention of information technology, few studies have discussed the discontinuance issue of smart wearable devices. Therefore, we propose an integrated model, consisting of the perceived risk and the perceived benefit, to explore the factors that affect the users' intention to terminate the usage of smart wearable devices. A questionnaire survey was conducted, and 529 valid questionnaires were collected to analyse the samples using structural equation modelling. The result showed that our model had 57% explanatory variability. The findings and implications are beneficial to researchers and practitioners.

Keywords: discontinuance usage; perceived risk; perceived benefit; smart wearable device.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2025.147605

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2025 Vol.26 No.1, pp.58 - 87

Accepted: 13 Mar 2023
Published online: 24 Jul 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article