Social media fatigue -Technological antecedents and the moderating roles of personality traits: The case of WeChat

Abstract

In recent years, social media users have experienced fatigue as evidenced by a decline in their active numbers. Although researchers have explored stressors that may cause social media fatigue, the characteristics that may cause social media fatigue are unclear. Drawing on the person-environment fit model, this paper proposes that social media characteristics of anonymity, flexibility, and presenteeism are related to stressors of privacy invasion and invasion of life, which further induce social media fatigue. The moderating roles of neuroticism and extraversion are also examined. Data was collected from 426 users of the WeChat application and analyzed using SEM with PLS. The results show that anonymity and presenteeism significantly influence privacy invasion and invasion of life, both of which are determinants of social media fatigue. Neuroticism strengthens the effect of social media characteristics on privacy invasion and invasion of life, while extraversion weakens these effects. These findings enrich the social media fatigue literature by revealing the root causes of social media fatigue, and explaining the personal differences in stressor perceptions. They also benefit social media practitioners by allowing them to understand how to design social media applications that improve user experience.