Understanding the motivators of twitch usage and the role of dark personality traits

With the emergence of social networking platforms, video content consumption or creation has become a part of today's people's everyday lives. With the growth of the online gaming industry, Twitch has become one of the most popular live streaming platforms, where streamers share live videos and communicate with viewers through chat. Twitch brings people together as a social networking platform and provides a market for marketers, gaming companies, and developers. However, it has also created a suitable environment for trolls and toxic behaviors. Due to these opportunities and risks, this study aims to investigate the motivational drivers of Twitch usage, the personality traits of Twitch users, and how Twitch usage motivators are affected by dark personality traits. Results of this study have shown the motivators of Twitch usage, the dark personality traits of Twitch users, and how these motivations are affected by the dark personality traits. Information Seeking, Sense of Virtual Community, Evasion, Socializing and Networking, Addiction and Dependency, and Recognition are motivators of Twitch usage, and these motivations can be affected by Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. While trolling is a negative motivation for Twitch users with low dark personality traits but for users with high dark personality traits Trolling is not a motivator; it is a behavior that they are not aware of doing. However, if someone uses Twitch with trolling motivations, they are less likely to donate, subscribe, and spend long hours on Twitch.