Beyond surface: Chinese youth's digital reading motivation explored via laddering and the interpretative structural modeling method (ISM)

Meeting young people's needs for digital reading is key to the continued growth of the digital reading market, so it is very important to discuss young people's motivations for digital reading. However, the traditional information behavior model lacks the power to explain the structural relationship between the different motivations of young people to use digital reading and to rank the importance of the motivations. The study uses the laddering method and interpretative structural modeling method (ISM) to explore the motivations of Chinese youth groups to use digital reading media. The laddering method and ISM can effectively reveal the main motivations of young people to use digital reading, and the structural relationship and action path between the motivations. The results show that youth groups choose digital reading mainly to satisfy emotional value, convenience and good experience. The study also provides optimization recommendations for promoting digital reading.