Overload and exhaustion: Classifying SNS discontinuance intentions

Social networking sites (SNS) have transformed the communication systems; along with its positive effects, maladaptive usage of SNS brings some adverse outcomes too. The current study investigates the adverse impact of SNS usage. It focuses on social overload, information overload, and SNS exhaustion resultants of maladaptive usage causing dissatisfaction and regrets influencing the customer continuation intentions. Stressor-Strain-Outcome (SSO) framework is adopted in this study to investigate the antecedents of user intentions to discontinue the SNS usage. In the proposed research model, stressors, strains, and outcome are empirically examined with data collected from 505 SNS users. Findings based on statistical analysis show that psychological and behavioral alterations caused by maladaptive usage force users to discontinue the SNS usage due to dissatisfaction and regret caused by SNS usage. The excessive usage cause social overload, information overload, and SNS exhaustion source to dissatisfaction and consequent regret that push the user to decide to discontinue SNS. This research work develops theoretical implication for future SNS-based work and put forward a practical suggestion for organizations using SNS, SNS user, and SNS service providers.