An Integrative Perspective of Online Foraging Behavior with Search Engines

While technology evolves rapidly, humans have to adapt to the environment. Evolutionary theories are proposed as an overarching framework to explain the information systems phenomena. However, there is a need to develop these theories in more realistic contexts, and to integrate them with nonevolutionary theories, in order to gain a better understanding of humancomputer interactions. Searching entails uncertainty, and the feelings that it arouses may affect search behavior. This research aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of situational factors on online foraging with search engines, taking into account users behavior and their emotional responses during the process. The results stress the importance of the initial emotional state and the temporal dimension in shaping the online environment that determines the online search behavior.