Exploring The Effects Of Excessive Social Media Use At Work On Job Performance

With the rapid development of mobile Internet technology and smart devices,social media applications can be used for social and hedonic purposes such as social interaction,and entertainment,as well as for utilitarian purposes such as communication and information-seeking.The prevalence of social media has made it an indispensable part of people's organizational life.However,due to the convenience and entertainment of social media,especially the proliferation of various social media applications,individuals spend increasing time on social media platforms and depend on social media greatly in the workplace.These behaviors can induce excessive usage,which may incur negative consequences,such as technostress and reduced job performance.Considering the practical pertinence and the research relevance,this paper systematically explores excessive usage behavior of employees in the workplace,and reveals the potential mechanism of different types of excessive social media use on individual job performance.Based on person-environment fit model and transactional theory of stress and coping,this paper combines uses and gratifications theory,develops an extended usage experience-stressor-strain-outcome model,and conducts three empirical studies to explore the potential negative effects of excessive social media use at work on individual job performance.We posit that three dimensions of excessive social media use(excessive social use,excessive hedonic use,and excessive cognitive use)at work can induce social media overload(information overload,communication overload and social overload)and technology-work conflict,which in turn lead to emotional exhaustion,and ultimately reduces job performance.We use the survey method to collect data.The target participants are Chinese employees using social media in work environment.The main conclusions are as follows:1)Excessive social media use at work is the significant predictor of social media overload and technology-work conflict.2)Except social overload,information overload,communication overload,and technology-work conflict positively affect emotional exhaustion.3)Emotional exhaustion has a significantly negative influence on job performance.This paper provides several contributions to the existing research.1)This paper focuses on the dark side of social media use at work and explores the negative consequences of irrational use of social media on job performance,which balances social media research and enriches social media literature in the workplace context.2)This paper separates the omnibus variable of excessive social media use at work into fine graded components including excessive social use,excessive hedonic use,and excessive cognitive use.Based on the usage experience-stressor-strain-outcome model,we examine the negative consequences of different excessive usage patterns on job performance,which enriches technostress research.3)According to the social interaction characteristic of social media environment,a more comprehensive classification of social media overload is identified,which improves the understanding of the types of social media overload.In addition,the study of technology-work conflict supplements the family-technology-work interface theory.These enrich the existing literature on overload and conflict.