SUBMITTED BY

NIMRA BATOOL

ROLL NUMBER

O19

SUBMITTED TO

ADEEL LUQMAN

SUBJECT

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

DEPARTMENT

COMMERCE
The study is about the use of social media and how the excessive social, cognitive and hedonic
use of this pleasure seeking app leads to exhaustion and technostress. To investigate the reason
of quitting Facebook, the paradigm stimulus-organism-response is used. The investigation is
done through a sample of 360 Facebook users.

SNS aims to fulfil the need of social relation among people who share interests and activities.
The primary function of SNS is information sharing. However it is seen that some SNS have
experience a decline in their growth after a certain period. It is observed that after 2014, the
number of active users on Facebook started declining. The decline affected the stakeholders of
SNS providers. It is to be observed that what the reason of discontinuous use of SNS was. Some
researchers considered that due to stress people withdraw the use of SNS as the coping strategy
while some examined the antecedent and consequences of habitual use.

The purpose of this study is to examine why people use social media and if it is pleasure-seeking,
information gathering platform then what is the reason people quitting SNS usage. In this study
Facebook is specifically investigated. People gets motivation from the external environment to
use SNS. Its excessive usage cause technostress and SNS exhaustion which are the self-evaluated
feelings of tiredness. If we examine the whole cycle from adoption to termination we can easily
predict the factors involved in people quitting of SNS.

Investigating the discontinuous use intention on SNS from a psychological perspective is

important. Stress and exhaustion are transactional processes. SOR model is a structured manner
through which we examine the effect of environmental stimuli on users’ virtual experience and
in turn their intention to quit SNS usage. When the user lacks managing abilities and uses it
excessively it leads to stress.

According to SOR model various environmental aspects acts as stimuli (S) that affects the
internal state (O) of people that drives their behavior responses. According to this model, stimuli
in external environment support the inward state of people. SOR model is important for two
reasons. One is that it has been widely used in previous studies on online users’ behavior. Second
is that SOR provides a parsimonious manner through which we examine technological factors
effects on users’ virtual experience and their intention to quit SNS.
SOR tells the impact of environmental stimuli on users’ behavior is mediated by virtual
experiences. The present study tells about two essential types of virtual experiences. The first is
technostress which results due to excessive use of SNS. The second is SNS exhaustion which
results when the person perceives social overload due to SNS usage. Due to exhaustion the
person feels bored and exhausted. The intention to quit social media is considered as a response
in the research model. Because to measure the actual behavior is relatively difficult.

According to previous section, people become frequent users of SNS due to most important
characteristics i.e. sociability, entertainment and gaining knowledge. If user has several friends
then he or she will receive more messages from social media and become more exposed to it. In
technostress the end user experience stress due to communication overload.

Hedonic use is based on the use of SNS for entertainment purpose. For instance if a user
constantly playing games it will develop a constant desire to perform the act again and again then
it will become problematic.

The research was conducted to identify the critical role of using social media and its impact on
the psychological health of users. According to SOR model Stress and exhaustion were the
impact of excessive SNS usage. The study focused on the negative effects of using SNS.

The study revealed that the sources of stress are not only technological and informational but
also the social aspect. The result shows the people who use excessive Facebook have a higher
chance to discontinue it in the near future. It is found out that the excessive cognitive usage has a
greatest impact on technostress and SNS exhaustion. System feature overload, information
overload and communication overload produces the similar impact on SNS fatigue. If
technostress and SNS exhaustion increases so does the discontinuous intention.

It was found out that discontinuous use is an adoption response strategy of users to avoid a
stressful situation. The present study identifies that users should moderate their behavior to avoid
the adverse effects of social media. Also there should be systematic education in school and
colleges about the adverse effects of social media. SNS requires a balanced approach otherwise it
will create negative impact on user’s health.