Antecedent And Consequence Of SNS Psychological Dependence

The rapid development of Internet has profoundly influenced our daily life almost from every aspect.Recent years,due to the advances in mobile technology and the growing of various mobile applications,access to social networking sites(SNSs)has become easier.The interactive functions of SNSs allow people to communicate with almost anyone no matter when and where,thus SNSs are gradually becoming a popular way of developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships.However,every coin has two sides.People may compel themselves to use SNSs excessively,resulting in negative consequences such as decreasing work performance,disharmonious social life and even serious mental problems etc.Anecdotal evidence indicates that the addictive usage of SNSs has become universal among a large proportion of individuals.Therefore,SNS dependence should be a major concern in IS researches.In addition,the success of SNS depends on individuals' intention on usage,therefore this study also concerns how psychological dependence influences using intention.Drawing on social attachment theory,this study examines the effect of social attachment on psychological dependence.Furthermore,this study also explores how psychological dependence influences users' SNS discontinuance through the effect of SNS exhaustion.This study examined the research model with an empirical survey of 479 WeChat Moments users.The results show that social attachment is positively associated with SNS psychological dependence.Besides,psychological dependence has a double-edged effect on SNS discontinuance.The results also indicates that social attachment can negatively influence SNS exhaustion.The implications for theory and practice are discussed as well.