Social media has billions of users, but we still do not fully understand why users prefer one platform over another. Establishing new platforms among already popular competitors is difficult. Prior research has richly documented people's experiences within individual platforms, yet situating those experiences within the entirety of a user's social media experience remains challenging. What platforms have people used, and why have they transitioned between them? We collected data from a quota-based sample of 1,000 U.S. participants. We introduce the concept of \emph{Social Media Journeys} to study the entirety of their social media experiences systematically. We identify push and pull factors across the social media landscape. We also show how different generations adopted social media platforms based on personal needs. With this work, we advance HCI by moving towards holistic perspectives when discussing social media technology, offering new insights for platform design, governance, and regulation.

翻译：社交媒体拥有数十亿用户，但我们仍不完全理解用户为何偏爱某一平台而非其他。在已有流行竞争对手中建立新平台是困难的。先前研究已充分记录了人们在单一平台内的体验，但将这些体验置于用户完整的社交媒体经历中仍具挑战性。人们使用过哪些平台？又为何在平台间迁移？我们通过配额抽样收集了1000名美国参与者的数据，引入“社交媒体历程”概念以系统研究其完整的社交媒体体验。我们识别了社交媒体生态中的推力与拉力因素，并揭示了不同世代如何基于个人需求采纳社交媒体平台。本工作通过推动人机交互领域在讨论社交媒体技术时采用整体视角，为平台设计、治理与监管提供了新的见解。