Social Overload and Discontinuance Intention on Facebook: A Comparative Study

Chaeyoung Lim and Jongchang Ahn
Additional contact information
Chaeyoung Lim: Mobility Solutions—IT Program Management, Robert Bosch GmbH, 70442 Stuttgart, Germany
Jongchang Ahn: Department of Information Systems, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: When users begin to feel uncomfortable about the influence of social network services (SNSs) on their lives, they react with various discontinuance behaviors. This comparative study intends to provide a comprehensive explanation of how the fatigue or regret phenomenon is related to users’ diverse reactions against SNSs. This study attempts to answer two questions: (1) How do specific types of relationships influence social overload from SNS interactions on Facebook? and (2) How does social overload threaten the free usage of services and lead to users’ dissatisfaction with SNSs, and how do these constructs influence users’ intent to discontinue usage of SNSs? To this end, we test a reactance model with Facebook users (n = 433) using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This study found significant results of the reactance mechanism using samples from two countries, Korea and Japan, which support the generalizability of the reactance mechanism in SNS fatigue. The path of the psychological reactance mechanism in SNSs could differ by country. We also found that reactions toward persona non grata in SNSs differed by country. Our findings suggest that the specific cultural context should be considered when analyzing social overload in SNSs. In previous studies, insufficient attention has been paid to the social features or contexts of SNS. This study proposes a new categorization of relationships in the context of SNSs through the persona non grata concept. As SNSs are social platforms, emotions perceived from the social features of SNSs are an important construct that motivates people to continue using SNSs. Therefore, promoting free activities for users can be an important strategy for maintaining their motivation to use the service. It should be noted that the sample used in this study was slightly unbalanced by the inclusion of a greater proportion of young participants.

Keywords: social media; social network service; SNS fatigue; social overload; reactance theory; persona non grata (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12556/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12556/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12556-:d:678627

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().