Too much social media? Unveiling the effects of determinants in social media fatigue

Front Psychol. 2024 Jul 23:15:1277846. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1277846. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Introduction: With the boom in social media, many people spend a lot of time on these platforms. Among them, some developed negative emotions, such as fatigue, depression, or disinterest in communicating, and used social media temporarily or permanently. Therefore, this study aims to explore the antecedents of social media fatigue, including social media helpfulness, social media self-efficacy, online subjective well-being, social comparison, compulsive social media use, privacy concerns, fear of missing out, and information overload, and to further discuss the determinants of social media fatigue on social anxiety and lurking.

Methods: An online questionnaire was distributed to social media users, and 659 valid samples were obtained with the help of a purposive sampling strategy. The data was analyzed by the partial least square (PLS) method.

Results: The study found that social media self-efficacy had a significant negative effect on social media fatigue; compulsive social media use, fear of missing out, and information overload had a significant positive effect on social media fatigue; and social media fatigue had a significant positive effect on social anxiety and lurking.

Discussion: The research results can be used as a reference for social media marketers and internet service providers in developing business strategies.

Keywords: fear of missing out; information overload; lurking; social anxiety; social media fatigue.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the Soft Science Research Project of Henan Province in 2024 (Project name: Research on the Protection, Inheritance and Development of Cultural Space of Traditional Villages in Henan Yanhuang; Project number: 242400411147); Research Project on Integration of Production and Education in Undergraduate Universities in Henan Province (Project name: Comprehensive Reform and Application of Multiple Collaborative Practice Teaching Mode of Design Major under AI Enabling; Project number: 2023348073); Research and Practice Project on Undergraduate Education and Teaching Reform of Henan Agricultural University (Project name: Research and Practice on Teaching Reform of General Courses of Public Art in Colleges and Universities in the New Era of “Educating People with Aesthetics and Infiltrating Integration”; Project number: 2024XJGLX002); Research and Practice Project of Research-based Teaching Reform in Undergraduate Universities (Project name: Writing papers in Geodetic Design, Doing in Hometown: Application Research of Research-based Teaching Mode in Practical Teaching of Design Major; Project number: 2022SYJXLX097).