Search results

The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret addiction to social network services (SNSs), not from the traditional clinical perspective as a disorder, but from a management perspective as consumer behaviour to examine its possibility as a manageable resource.

A survey was conducted on heavy users of SNSs. Based on the data the authors performed an exploratory factor analysis to define SNS addiction and to construct its dimensions.

The authors termed SNS addiction as an “addictive consumption trait” (ACT) of SNS and its underlying dimensions are salience, euphoria, immersion, compulsion, and association.

The authors used SNS user behaviour as the sample for their empirical analysis. However there is a variety of other internet services available and different internet services may show different consumer behaviour. Therefore, for future research, the authors suggest conducting a comparative study on the influence of addiction on different types of internet services.

With the newly constructed dimensions of ACT of SNS, firms could find out the causal relationships between the attributes of their SNSs on each dimension of ACT of SNS. Once firms understand the influences of each one of the attributes on ACT of SNS, they can re‐strategise their resource allocation for maximising consumers' ACT of SNS.

SNS addiction has been viewed as a clinical disorder for treatment. The paper considers SNS addiction from the marketing perspective, which is a novel approach in the study of addiction. Through this study the authors hope to trigger academic discussions about ACT of SNS as consumer behaviour and as a manageable resource.

This study aims to fill various gaps detected in the literature on mass prestige (hereafter referred to as masstige) theory. The originality of the work stems from the multidimensional application of Paul’s (2015) model, the introduction of brand addiction as a construct from the consumer-brand relationship (CBR) theory within the context of wines and the exploration of a new and less studied sector in masstige strategies.

A structured questionnaire was distributed to collect data from masstige wine brand buyers in Portugal, of whom 166 completed the questionnaire correctly. A conceptual model was developed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The findings include that only two dimensions of Paul’s (2015) masstige scale affect brand addiction: brand knowledge and excitement and status. Brand addiction has a positive effect on brand loyalty and electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and brand loyalty has a positive impact on eWOM. Theoretical and managerial implications were explored.

This research added a CBR perspective to masstige theory and applied masstige theory to wine brands for the first time. These three distinctive aspects collectively contribute to the novelty and significance of the research, opening up exciting possibilities for future investigations and providing a valuable contribution to the academic community and the wine industry alike.

Considering the popularity and addictive attributes of microblogging, the purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of the microblogging addiction tendency, and to investigate the causal relationship between microblogging usage and addiction tendency through the lens of the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory.

By extending the U&G theory to accommodate the negative consequences of gratification, a research model that explains the relationships among microblogging use, gratification and addiction tendency was developed and empirically examined based on the data collected from 520 microblogging users in China.

The results showed that different types of microblogging use lead to different categories of gratification to different extents, while different categories of gratification play different roles in determining the level of addiction tendency. Specifically, the effect of content gratification on addiction is marginal, while social gratification has significant effects on all dimensions of addiction tendency.

The present study has both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, unlike many previous studies applied the U&G theory to explore the positive outcomes of media uses, this paper extends the U&G by including addiction tendency as a negative psychological outcome of U&G., resulting a research framework (use-gratification-addiction framework). Meanwhile, this paper contributes to the extending literature by examining the constructs of U&G at a granular level and investigated the causal relationship between “uses” and “gratifications.”

Millions of social media users over the last two decades have become dependent on social media that has negatively affected their lives, both physically and mentally. Earlier attempts on social media addiction (SMA) scale development have not been made in India which makes it essential to undertake such a study in this region. One of the objectives of this study was to explore and identify the relevant dimensions of the SMA in the literature. The main study objective was to develop and validate a scale on SMA in India.

The research design applied in this work was both qualitative and quantitative. Based on the literature review, some themes of SMA were recognized that were used to conduct semi-structured interviews with the concerned subjects. The interviews conducted were then transcribed, and using NVivo software application, content analysis was carried out. This helped in the identification of relevant themes that were used for preparing the questionnaire. After that an exploratory study was conducted to explore the factors of SMA. This was followed by a confirmatory analysis on a different sample that validated the instrument.

This work developed and validated a six-factor measure of SMA. The total numbers of items in the final instrument are 22. Salience, Tolerance, Mood Modification, Relapse, Withdrawal and Conflict are the six factors of the final scale.

The current designed instrument can be exceptionally functional for evaluating the occurrence and level of the SMA. This can also serve to assist in the handling and management of such online addictive behavior. A lot of productivity is lost due to the unwarranted time spent on the social media. By better understanding the dimensions of SMA, one can limit one's time on such networks.

This work can provide valuable insight into this domain and help in understanding and treatment of this malaise. It can also help parents and other stakeholders at large to comprehend the danger linked with the excessive social media use and therefore, contribute towards the society. These dimensions can also help counsellors and psychologists to better understand the addiction behavior and accordingly counsel the concerned individual.

Although many instruments have been developed in the past by researchers to measure SMA,still some aspects of the concept remain under-researched. Moreover, most of such research has been confined to the developed world regions.

It is a widely held belief that users make a rational cost-benefit decision when choosing whether to disclose information online. Yet, in the privacy context, the evidence is far from conclusive suggesting that strong and as-yet unmeasured influences on behaviour may exist. This paper aims to demonstrate one such link – the effect of internet addiction on information disclosure.

Data from 216 Web users was collected regarding their perceptions on privacy and information disclosure intentions as well as avoidance behaviour, an element of internet addiction. Using a research model based on the Privacy Calculus theory, structural equation modelling was applied to quantify the determinants of online disclosure under various conditions.

The authors show that not all aspects of privacy (a multi-dimensional construct) influence information disclosure. While concerns about data collection influence self-disclosure behaviour, the level of awareness about privacy does not. They next examine the impact of internet addiction on these relationships, finding that internet addiction weakens the influence of privacy concerns to the point of non-significance.

The authors highlight some of the influences of self-disclosure behaviour, showing that some but not all aspects of privacy are influential. They also demonstrate that there are powerful influences on user behaviour that have not been accounted for in prior work; internet addiction is one of these factors. This provides some of the first evidence of the potentially deleterious effect of internet addiction on the privacy calculus.

The expansion of lifestyle and luxury markets has necessitated new marketing techniques. Recently, brand addiction has been a new topic in luxury repurchasing. The information reported in the literature regarding the effectiveness of brand addiction is insufficient and controversial. This research aimed to assess the role of brand addiction in Islamic consumers who purchase luxury smartphone brands.

Survey responses were collected from an online sample of 384 luxury consumers in Iran. The methods were evaluated using software (smart PLS 3) to test the hypothesis.

According to the uniqueness theory, the authors completed that brand addiction and consumer relationships are different and relative in each luxury product. The results positively determine that brand addiction has a more significant impact than brand jealousy, brand love and brand experience in repurchasing luxury consumers.

This study helps expand the literature on luxury repurchases and contends that brand addiction creates a new perspective in understanding behavioral addiction.

This paper provides insights for current and future marketers and managers, especially in Iran.

This investigation is the first study on the impact of different dimensions of brand addiction on luxury smartphone repurchase intention. In this regard, the findings of the study are important in the luxury market and extend current knowledge on repurchasing luxury products such as in Iran.

Although Facebook addiction has been found to be a key motive for using Facebook, scant research has explored the association of Facebook addiction with social capital. While researchers addressed how Facebook use strengthened social capital, they did not address the resultant excessive and uncontrollable Facebook use, which is a key sign of Facebook addiction. Therefore, the authors develop this project to study this research gap.

This research explores the motive of Facebook addiction by using a questionnaire to examine the relationships between Facebook addiction and two types of social capital: cognitive and bonding social capital. The authors recruited Hong Kong youth through Facebook and peer groups to complete a set of questionnaires on Facebook addiction, cognitive social capital, bonding social capital and the degree of extraversion. Hierarchical regression is used for analyzing the data collected.

Hierarchical regression results indicated that the more addicted one was to Facebook, the lower the cognitive social capital one perceived. Such a negative relationship was particularly significant for female participants. A similar but marginally significant effect is also found for bonding social capital.

This research sheds light on the impact of Facebook addiction on how one perceives shared meanings and the sense of belongingness with other people on social networks.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2021-0300.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how WeChat addiction influences users’ physical, mental, and social health.

A national survey was conducted in China. A total of 1,058 responses were collected from 31 regions of China.

The regression results show that WeChat addiction is negatively associated with users’ physical, mental, and social health. The negative effects are significant even after adjusting for the effects of the Big Five personality traits, years of using WeChat, and demographic variables such as age, gender, education level, and monthly income. Years of using WeChat is not significantly related to users’ health. It is also found that the influence of WeChat addiction on health outcomes is sensitive to years of WeChat use. The influence is dormant when users have less than three years of WeChat usage, but starts to exhibit itself after three years.

Addictive use of WeChat is associated with declining overall health among Chinese users. Given the cross-sectional nature of this study, definite causal relationship between WeChat addiction and health deterioration cannot be established. Controlled experiments are needed to further examine the causal effects of WeChat addiction.

WeChat is the most popular mobile social network service (SNS) in China, but its comprehensive impact on users’ health is rarely studied. This paper extends the extant research on SNS addiction by providing a deepened understanding of how mobile SNS addiction affects personal health in the unique context of WeChat, which provides an important contribution to the interdisciplinary research in public health, psychology, and information systems.

The purpose of the study is to analyze a sample of 528 published papers over the past 11 years by conducting a bibliometric analysis. The study also aims to provide a consolidated overview of the existing literature on “gaming addiction” and presents the status of research with future directions for researchers who wish to explore and contribute to this rapidly evolving field. The descriptive statistics have been conducted through citation and co-citation analysis.

For the bibliometric analysis, the documents were retrieved from the Scopus database with the help of the Scopus analyzer while the VOS viewer1.6.16 software was used to analyze citations, co-authorship, etc. The literature search strategy was applied across various databases and the articles published between 2010 and December 2021 giving a total of 1,219 articles across all disciplines. Finally, 528 articles were shortlisted through the query restricted to subject areas, namely, business management, psychology, social science and multidisciplinary areas.

IGA has also been recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, as one of the disorders; hence, this certainly calls for focussed efforts to understand the same and control further damage. The number of articles devoted to the study of “gaming addiction” has increased rapidly in recent years. Moreover, this study identifies some of the most influential articles in this area. Finally, this paper highlights the new trends and discusses the future research associated with gaming addiction.

This study focusses on gaming addiction and its trends, related to researchers and country-wise contributions. This is one of the few studies to review the literature on gaming addiction by using citation and co-citation analysis. The main findings of this paper will help academicians and practitioners to improve the body of knowledge on the topic and provide an overview of promising future research avenues.

Internet gaming is a newly emerging area and studies related to gaming addiction are very recent. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a unique and comprehensive overview of the leading works done in this area.

This study aims to focus on how smartphone addiction impacts young consumer behavior related to mobile technology (i.e. the compulsive app downloading tendency). After a thorough literature review and following the risk and protective factors framework, this study explores factors that could mitigate its effects (resilience, family harmony, perceived social support and social capital).

The study used the covariance-based structural equation modeling approach to analyze data collected from 275 Generation Z (Gen Z) smartphone users in Spain.

Results suggest that resilience is a critical factor in preventing smartphone addiction, and smartphone addiction boosts the compulsive app downloading tendency, a relevant downside for younger Gen Z consumers.

Through the lens of the risk and protective factors framework, this study focuses on protective factors to prevent smartphone addiction and its negative side effects on app consumption. It also offers evidence of younger consumers’ vulnerability to smartphone addiction, not because of the device itself but because of app-consumption-related behaviors.