Title: Examining social media fatigue and flow experience: a moderated mediation model of addiction and self-esteem

Authors: Akhil Prakash; Pushpendra Priyadarshi; Pankaj Kumar; Ajay Singh

Addresses: Department of Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Prabandh Nagar, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, India ' Department of Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Prabandh Nagar, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, India ' Department of Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Prabandh Nagar, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, India ' Department of Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Prabandh Nagar, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, India

Abstract: The dark side of social media (SM) has become an active area of research but, scarce studies exist on the role of unplanned motivational factors and the resulting SM behaviour. To bridge the gap, we explore the link between SM flow, a primary intrinsic motivation for SM use, and fatigue, which is an unwanted outcome. Drawing on the conservation of resources and unplanned behaviour theory, this study seeks to establish addiction as a resource drain and self-esteem as a resource drain buffer in understanding the mechanism of fatigue development from flow experience. We took data from 241 respondents and tested our model for the mediation effect of SM addiction on the relationship between SM flow and fatigue, and the moderation effect of self-esteem on the relationship between flow and addiction. The results indicated that the moderated mediation model is significant. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Keywords: social media strain; fatigue; flow; addiction; self-esteem; conservation of resources; unplanned behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2024.139164

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2024 Vol.32 No.2, pp.251 - 280

Received: 19 Sep 2022
Accepted: 24 Dec 2022
Published online: 24 Jun 2024 *

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