Determining influences of information irrelevance, information overload and communication overload on WeChat discontinuance intention: The moderating role of exhaustion

Abstract

Owing to the combined advancement of network technologies and smartphone equipments, WeChat has become particularly ubiquitous, affording younger generations with multifarious information, connectedness establishing, and interactive communication opportunities. Although a large and remain growing body of studies have investigated the antecedents of social media exhaustion, the potential influencing factors and causations leading to WeChat discontinuous intention have received limited academic attention. Based on the stressor-stress-outcome paradigm, this empirical study develops a conceptual research model to explore how information overload, communication overload, and information irrelevance contribute to social media exhaustion and how these variables relate to WeChat users' intention to discontinue use. Analysis of data from 405 WeChat users demonstrated that information irrelevance, information overload, and communication overload exert the positive influence on WeChat users’ exhaustion. Moreover, social media exhaustion is also a significant predictor of WeChat discontinuance use intention. This research satisfies the existing demand for an in-depth investigation of social media exhaustion phenomenon by uncovering the drivers and antecedents of discontinuous usage intention of WeChat among younger generations. Obtained findings may not only contribute to the further comprehending of discontinuance intention from a cognitive overload perspective, but also provide fresh insights for practitioners on how to strategically manage mobile social media adoption behavior and sustain active young users in contemporary mobile-saturated societies.