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Unlike desktops, tablet computers (hereafter tablets) are interwoven into individuals’ daily life, they have the capacity to redefine how individuals enjoy, learn, and socialize. With the sudden appearance of these hedonic systems (i.e. tablets) and the substantial reliance on them, user adoption of IT continues to be a central issue for human-computer interaction (HCI) and information systems (IS) according to many studies (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2016; Zhang, Nah, and Preece, 2004; Mun and Hwang, 2003; DeLone and McLean, 1992; Carroll and Rosson, 1987; Nickerson, 1981). Understanding the motivation behind the adoption of tablets for personal use is essential in guiding the efforts to introduce tablets to societies and improve their designs.
A great deal of literature exists about models on IT adoption, and researchers seem to agree on the factors that influence an individual’s decision to adopt IT (e.g., Venkatesh et al. (2003; Saghafi et al. (2017) However, more often than not, the relevant research on IT adoption focuses mostly on understanding users’ adoption of IT within an organizational (or work) environment, where IT is mainly adopted to improve task performance (Yu et al., 2017).
Many studies investigate the hedonic purposes and factors behind adopting mobile devices and mobile-based services in different settings such as mobile chat services (Nysveen et al., 2005a), instant messaging (Li et al., 2005), computer-mediated communication (Yao and Flanagin, 2006), young children’s use of technology (McKenney and Voogt, 2010), online payment (Rouibah, Lowry, and Hwang, 2016), and education (Nikou and Economides, 2017; Baturay, Gökçearslan, and Ke, 2017; Pirhonen and Rousi, 2018). However, the generalizability of their findings may suffer because different users might value different aspects of tablet use as relevant to their perceptions of individual goals (Pirhonen and Rousi, 2018). In addition, most of the research focuses on understanding the impact of tablets on the processes (e.g., education, medicine, banking, etc.) but only a small amount of that research has focused on understanding the individuals’ motivations to adopt tablets for personal use (Alalwan, Dwivedi, and Rana, 2017). Moreover, the Arab world has a collectivist culture where the motives to use technologies are more socially and group oriented (Hofstede, 2009).
Knowing what motivates Kuwaitis to adopt and use tablets is therefore essential to providing effective IT-based services and ensuring sustainable social and economic growth in Kuwait. The government has undertaken a comprehensive technology initiative to provide citizens and businesses with key e-services (Khalil, 2012) that can be accessed through electronic devices such as tablets. In addition, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education has recently mandated the adoption of tablets (i.e., iPads) in the public-school system (Turki, 2017). However, the successful implementation of these initiatives is contingent on whether Kuwaitis (e.g., students and teachers) are intrinsically motivated to adopt tablets as personal tools.