The social media discontinuance model: the trio of dark side, regret, and privacy control

Ziyue Huang, Prashant Palvia and Nikhil Mehta

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2025, vol. 44, issue 3, 523-551

Abstract: This study introduces the Social Media Discontinuance Model (SMDM), a conceptual framework aimed at identifying the factors influencing social media discontinuance intention. Previous research has primarily addressed dissatisfaction and only partially addressed regret as reasons for social media discontinuance, leaving the antecedents of regret and strategies to mitigate it unexplored. In our research, we identify five dimensions of dark side experience, encompassing cyberbullying, misinformation, information overload, misuse, and behaviours causing online social stress. Additionally, we consider three moderators: privacy control, valence, and tie strength, which either amplify or mitigate the impact of regret stemming from dark side experiences. Our findings demonstrate that regret fully mediates the relationship between the dark side and discontinuance intention. Moreover, the relationship between the dark side and regret is influenced by privacy control and the valence of social media usage. These results suggest that, to alleviate social media regret and intention to discontinue, platform providers should address negative effects by optimising privacy controls and fostering positive user experiences.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2326551 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tbitxx:v:44:y:2025:i:3:p:523-551

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2024.2326551

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().