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AbstractDrawing on the dual system theory, a configuration model for cyberchondria was proposed to explore the complex interplay between the individual characteristics, socioemotional system, and cognitive control system in causing cyberchondria. A questionnaire was distributed to users who have searched for health information on social media platforms. A total of 320 valid responses were collected. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method was employed to analyse the data. Four equifinal configurations leading to cyberchondria were identified, with fear of missing out, perceived information overload, and perceived communication overload as core conditions. Additionally, one configuration leading to the absence of cyberchondria was identified. We further explored the configurations for the four sub-dimensions of cyberchondria. The results revealed four configurations for excessiveness, two for distress, one for compulsion, and three for reassurance. Four theoretical propositions leading to cyberchondria and its sub-dimensions are proposed. This provides a dual system perspective into how fear of missing out can evolve into cyberchondria and explains the complexities of cyberchondria between different individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Internet for constant connectivity with social networking sites has negative consequences in the form of higher mental pressure, low physical and offline activities, and mental tiredness and fatigue. Using these given phenomena, this research explores how system complexity, information overload, and communication overload are decisive factors of tiredness of social networking sites among Chinese individuals. The study also adds the role of workfamily balance as a predictor in determining the tiredness levels of the use of social networking sites. A survey questionnaire was conducted over a sample of 507 respondents, drawn through non-probability purposive sampling techniques from employees of major Chinese organizations. The Structural Equation Modelling measurements revealed that, except for system complexity, the impact of information overload, communication overload, and work-family balance is significant in causing tiredness of social networking sites. However, while both overload factors were responsible for greater tiredness, a higher balance between work and family tends to reduce it. The study suggests that policymakers should develop strategies through to reduce such tiredness. It was also felt that a more work-family balance should be a panacea for such tiredness among the Chinese people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In social commerce, users are increasingly resorting to social media platforms to search for information, purchase goods, and share shopping experiences. However, social media use may also affect users' emotions negatively, causing them to switch platforms. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how negative factors (i.e., information and communication overload) affect consumers’ platform-switching behavior in social commerce. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model, this study established a research framework and conducted an online survey in China. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data, generating 477 valid responses. Data analysis, based on structural equation modeling, indicates that information and communication overload, and online fatigue positively affect platform-switching intention. The effect of the intention to switch on behavior is moderated by switching costs. Mediation analysis shows that information and communication overload can indirectly influence switching behavior through online fatigue and switching intention. This study incorporates the novel aspects of switching costs in examining the driving forces behind platform-switching in social commerce, thereby theoretically adding value to the existing body of knowledge. Apart from this, our findings also bear significant practical implications and are valuable for social commerce platforms and sellers to improve their user experience and retain existing customers.

Pervasive social networking sites (SNSs) access has forced people to pay continuous attention to the overwhelming volume of information which ultimately increases their usage. The extensive use of SNSs has contributed to the overuse of technology and that can lead to overload which may produce negative behavioural consequences. This study used cognitive load theory as foundation of the model to examine the effect of overloads and discontinuous intentions incorporating SNS addiction, social media self-efficacy and SNS fatigue. To test the proposed model and hypothesis, a total of 371 Chinese university students participated in the study. Findings reveal that information and communication overload exert a direct impact on SNS addiction, and the relationship between SNS addiction and discontinuous intentions amongst users is negatively significant. The moderated mediation analysis result indicates that social media self-efficacy moderates the mediating effect of SNS addiction between overloads (information and communication) and discontinuous intentions. Moreover, the relationship between SNS addiction and discontinuous intentions is partially mediated by SNS fatigue. Implications emphasise that SNS providers should effectively prevent the negative behavioural response of SNS users by providing training on the effective use of SNSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ever-changing global context, the need to understand why users discontinue using social media platforms is rapidly rising. Comprehending the backdrop of such decisions and factors governing the effects, as mentioned earlier, may help users to make such decisions and help service providers to mitigate them. There is a need to enrich the theoretical account of the phenomenon of social media discontinuation. Other authors focused on different social media platforms, but we have mainly used Facebook with sound justification to select its users as participants. We applied a quantitative study to survey 384 Facebook users, selecting the convenience sampling method. We integrated the ‘Stimulus-Organism-Response’ (S-O-R) framework and applied the Smart-PLS technique and software. The results support this framework and indicate that information overload, communication overload, social media self-efficacy, privacy concern, social media helpfulness, and annoyance (as stimuli). Results demonstrate that increase the fatigue feelings integrated with perceived relevance (i.e., organism) of social media users, which in turn, increases their social media discontinuance intentions and ad avoidance behavior (i.e., response). This research sheds light on the antecedents of social networking services (SNS) fatigue that influences overall Facebook fatigue and suggests practical implications for the ever-expanding SNS market. Our findings offer valuable insights to marketers, entrepreneurs, and organizations in every sector regarding the social media usage and break-up issues of individual users.

The purpose of the current research was to investigate Facebook discontinuance intentions in the Library and Information Science environment. The research model, building on the Theory of Planned Behavior, incorporated overload, fatigue, and self-efficacy, to understand the drivers behind users' intention to stop using Facebook (either permanently or intermittently) or replace it with another social medium. Overall, the results suggest that participants are unlikely to abandon Facebook either on a permanent or a temporary basis, at least in the near future. Furthermore, users' discontinuance intentions are primarily associated with evaluations about the consequences of their choice to abandon the medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) can be accompanied by the epiphenomenon of ICT-related overload, or the emotional and cognitive state that occurs when individuals are unable to efficiently retrieve and process information delivered by or associated with these technologies. While prior research tends to ascribe this phenomenon to the amount of information delivered, this study presents and provides significant empirical support for an expanded cognitive perspective of ICT-related overload, which views individuals’ information-processing capabilities as being reliant on differences in mental representations associated with cultural, demographic, and experiential factors. Specifically, based on a survey with 1,004 mobile phone users, we find that (1) polychronic individuals experience less ICT-related overload than monochronics; (2) memories of past emotional and cognitive overload increase ICT-related overload; and (3) age has inverse effects on different overload dimensions. Altogether, our findings challenge myths about information overload and multitasking, support a multidimensional conceptualization of ICT-related overload, and suggest ways that managers can reduce overload and leverage polychronicity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Features and relevant services of online social media have been attracting users during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have shown that college students tend to use social media more frequently than other groups. However, in being affected by social media overload, the social media use behaviors of many college students have been out of their control in terms of their capabilities or cognition. Based on the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) model and the theory of compensatory internet use (TCIU), we developed a research model to study the causes of social media overload and its impact on college students' academic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 441 valid responses from college students through questionnaires in China are collected via purposive sampling and used in the data analysis. This study conducts PLS-SEM to analyze collected data, finding that boredom proneness is associated with overload (stress), which has a bearing on social media overload (strain) and the reduction in final performance (outcome). Through illustrating the psychological and behavioral conditions that hinder the academic performance of students, this study provides deeper insights into students' uncontrollable use of social media. Moreover, with respect to the identified antecedents, this study aims to find solutions to mitigate the impact of social media overload resulting from boredom proneness on the academic performance of college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of technology paved the way for significant improvements in higher education institutions (HEIs) as much as it was associated with sizable pressures for individuals, implied by the challenging task of managing enormous volume of information from digital communication channels. This research is addressing two main objectives. First, explore the extent of Information and Communication Overload (ICO) that accompanied the digital transformation in Kuwaiti HEIs and accelerated amidst the Covid19 pandemic. Second, assess the conditions that are/could be used in those organizations to mitigate ICO and any of its adverse effects.

Social media applications have increasingly become a valuable platform for personal communication and knowledge sharing in working life. Several researchers have considered the direct role of social media usage in influencing job performance. However, limited studies explore how social media use may impact employees’ job performance, especially in innovativeness. Moreover, inconsistencies in the findings exist in the literature regarding whether social media improves employees’ job performance or causes harm. By adapting the stressor–strain–outcome (SSO) model, the present study investigates how WhatsApp use at work can predict social media overloads that might induce technostress and, subsequently, affect employees’ innovative job performance. Thus, 206 Malaysian employees from the government and private sectors participated in this study and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that social media, predominantly WhatsApp, used at work has a mild but statistically significant influence on information overload, communication overload, and social overload. In addition, information overload and communication overload positively influence technostress, except for social overload. Subsequently, technostress does not have an impact on innovative job performance. This study provides theoretical and practical implications for extending the knowledge and mitigating plans and efforts to improve employees’ performance at work. Therefore, this study helps mitigate the dearth of research pertaining to the roles of social media use at work on employees’ innovative job performance.

In recent years, there has been an escalation in cases of cyber violence, which has had a chilling effect on users' behavior toward social media sites. This article explores the causes behind cyber violence and provides empirical data for developing means for effective prevention. Using elements of the stimulus–organism–response theory, we constructed a model of cyber-violence behavior. A closed-ended questionnaire was administered to collect data through an online survey, which results in 531 valid responses. A proposed model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.0, v (3.2.8). Research findings show that information inequality is a strong external stimulus with a significant positive impact on digital distrust and negative emotion. However, the effects of information overload on digital distrust and the adverse effects of communication overload on negative emotions should not be ignored. Both digital distrust and negative emotions have significant positive impacts on cyber violence and cumulatively represent 11.5% changes in cyber violence. Furthermore, information overload, communication overload, information inequality, and digital distrust show a 27.1% change in negative emotions. This study also presents evidence for competitive mediation of digital distrust by information overload, information inequality, and cyber violence. The results of this study have implications for individual practitioners and scholars, for organizations, and at the governmental level regarding cyber-violence behavior. To test our hypotheses, we have constructed an empirical, multidimensional model, including the role of specific mediators in creating relationships.

In recent years, there has been an escalation in cases of cyber violence, which has had a chilling effect on users' behavior toward social media sites. This article explores the causes behind cyber violence and provides empirical data for developing means for effective prevention. Using elements of the stimulus–organism–response theory, we constructed a model of cyber-violence behavior. A closed-ended questionnaire was administered to collect data through an online survey, which results in 531 valid responses. A proposed model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.0, v (3.2.8). Research findings show that information inequality is a strong external stimulus with a significant positive impact on digital distrust and negative emotion. However, the effects of information overload on digital distrust and the adverse effects of communication overload on negative emotions should not be ignored. Both digital distrust and negative emotions have significant positive impacts on cyber violence and cumulatively represent 11.5% changes in cyber violence. Furthermore, information overload, communication overload, information inequality, and digital distrust show a 27.1% change in negative emotions. This study also presents evidence for competitive mediation of digital distrust by information overload, information inequality, and cyber violence. The results of this study have implications for individual practitioners and scholars, for organizations, and at the governmental level regarding cyber-violence behavior. To test our hypotheses, we have constructed an empirical, multidimensional model, including the role of specific mediators in creating relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of Information Overload and Communication Overload on Social Media Exhaustion and Job Performance on marketing department employees of Bukalapak Company. The respondents are 70 staffs in the marketing division. This research uses a quantitative approach with a path analysis methodology with data processing based on the SmartPLS program and the findings support the hypothesis. The results of the study stated that Information Overload as well as Communication Overload has a positive and significant effect on Social Media Exhaustion, furthermore Social Media exhaustion, Information Overload and Communication Overload have negative and significant effects on Job Performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reconceptualizes communication overload and builds a theoretical foundation to understand how this phenomenon applies in contemporary life. We build theory by relying on past research and using a Q-method to capture the subjective perspectives of people who experience communication overload. In our refinement of this abstract concept, we identified seven dimensions composing communication overload. The dimensions included: compromising message quality, having many distractions, using many information and communication technologies, pressuring for decisions, feeling responsible to respond, overwhelming with information, and piling up of messages. Our reconceptualization integrates disparate research, links the availability-expectation-pressure pattern to overload, and elaborates on communication quality, quantity, and generalized perceptions of feeling overwhelmed. The resulting formative theoretical model sets the stage for additional theorizing and empirical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an always connected communication environment, users of social networking services (SNSs) need to pay continuous attention to the overwhelming volume of social demands from SNSs. These increased energy requirements may cause SNS fatigue, which can lead to physical and psychological strain. Using the transactional theory of stress and coping as the overarching theory, this study regards overload (i.e., stressors) as a core determinant of SNS fatigue (i.e., strain) and identifies three dimensions of overload – information overload, communication overload, and system feature overload. It also includes SNS characteristics as the antecedents of overload. The data used in this study were collected from 201 individuals through online and offline surveys. Our results show that all three dimensions of overload were significant stressors that influence SNS fatigue. Regarding the predictors of overload, the characteristics of the SNS system significantly influenced the features of system overload, while information equivocality positively influences information overload. However, information relevance was not a significant predictor of information overload and information equivocality was not a significant predictor of communication overload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Individuals within organizations are beginning to make an important realization: more information technology (IT) usage in the workplace can, at times, lead to productivity losses. We conceptualize this frequently observed, but largely ignored phenomenon as technology overload, when additional technology tools begin to crowd out one’s productivity instead of enhancing it. We found support for three main factors contributing technology-based productivity losses through information overload, communication overload, and system feature overload. Interestingly, these factors are a function of the individuals who use the technology, not the technology itself. In this paper, we present the results from three studies that (1) develop and pre-test a scale measurement for technology overload and its distinct dimensions, (2) validate the instrument, and (3) explore the relationship between technology overload and knowledge worker productivity. Our findings demonstrate the relationship between information technology usage and knowledge worker productivity, and they suggest how tradeoffs can be managed to ameliorate technology overload. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]