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Drawing on the social learning theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents and consequences of users’ excessive online social gaming. Specifically, the authors develop a model to propose that observational learning and reinforcement learning mechanisms together determine excessive online social gaming, which further foster adverse consequences.

The model is empirically validated by a longitudinal survey among users of a popular online social game: Arena of Valor. The empirical data are analyzed using component-based structural equation modeling approach.

The empirical results offer two key findings. First, excessive online social gaming is determined by observational learning factors, i.e. social frequency and social norm, and reinforcement learning factors, i.e. perceived enjoyment and perceived escapism. Second, excessive online social gaming leads to three categories of adverse consequences: technology-family conflict, technology-work conflict and technology-person conflict. Meanwhile, technology-family conflict and technology-work conflict further foster technology-person conflict.

This study contributes to the literature by developing a nomological framework of excessive online social gaming and by extending the social learning theory to excessive technology use.

Social media addiction has been an ongoing topic of debate for platform developers, well-being and mental health experts. There is a limited understanding of the factors leading to the addiction of young social media users, the consequences of experiencing addiction, and the measures/mechanisms used by parents and platform providers to limit/prevent problematic social media use amongst young users. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature concerning these issues.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) protocol was used to evaluate and present the results. A total of 45 studies were screened and independently reviewed against predetermined criteria for eligibility.

The results revealed four categories of young users' addiction to social media networks (social, technological, behavioural and mental). Several prevention approaches directed at parents and platform providers were discussed.

This study offers important insights for health policy makers, platform providers, parents and researchers on designing interventions addressing social media addiction amongst young users. It also provides an in-depth understanding of the conceptualization of social media addiction and suggestions on possible actions to prevent it.

Information technology is associated with psychological and physical risks such as high stress levels and antisocial behavior. The purpose of this paper is to understand why people engage in technology risk behavior, despite the negative consequences that might follow. Focusing on online games, this study identifies factors that affect individuals' intention to play online games and investigate whether the effects of these factors differ across different risk levels.

Experimental design was used as the research methodology. Subjects were randomly assigned to a single treatment with two conditions: high and low risk scenarios. A total of 597 responses were analyzed to test the research hypotheses.

The research findings reveal that subjective norms, curiosity and playfulness have a positive effect on the intention to play online games, while critical mass has no effect on the intention decisions. Further, among the three significant constructs, playfulness turned out to be the only factor that is affected by risk levels.

This study extends prior literature on technology adoption by examining the effect of different risk levels on adoption intention decisions. It further extends prior literature on online games by identifying the factors that drive individuals to play games while accounting for the risks associated with playing these games.

The research study identifies factors that should be taken into consideration when promoting the adoption of technologies, including online games.

This study offers a new understanding of technology adoption decisions that takes into account the different levels of risk associated with technology use. It shows that an individual's curiosity and the pressure emanating from one's social network are powerful behavior drivers that persist regardless of the level of risk. Further, this research study is among the first to apply categorical least squares methodology combined with a procedure for a moderated structural equation model to test a structural equation model with categorical multiplicative terms in LISREL.

The engagement–addiction dilemma has been commonly observed in the information technology (IT) industry. However, this issue has received limited research attention in the information system (IS) discipline. Drawing on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, this study explores the engagement–addiction dilemma in the use of mobile games and highlights the impacts of game design features, namely, mobile user interface and mobile game affordance.

The research model was empirically validated using a longitudinal survey data from 410 mobile game users in China.

The empirical results offer several key findings. First, mobile user interface and mobile game affordance positively affect telepresence and social presence, which lead to meaningful engagement and mobile game addiction. Second, a high-quality of mobile user interface positively moderates the effects of mobile game affordance on telepresence and social presence.

This study contributes to the literature by theorizing and empirically testing the impacts of game design features on the engagement-addiction dilemma.

Online games are popular applications of Internet technology, with over 2.8 billion users worldwide. Many players engage in team gameplay, indicating that online games are suitable media through which players connect with their friends. However, past studies have not examined the ability of games to assist players in connecting with their friends, indicating a gap. To fill this gap, the authors propose a new concept, the friend-connecting affordance, which is the ability of an online game to enable players to contact friends within the game.

The authors built a model to explain how games' friend-connecting affordances influence game loyalty. The authors gathered responses from 1,347 online players and used structural equation modeling to test the model.

The authors found that friend-connecting affordances and team participation influence game loyalty. Gaming intensity and gaming history can moderate the impact of friend-connecting affordances.

This new affordance can be realized through various game elements, offering unique and actionable insights to game makers. The authors also compared the friend-connecting affordances among a number of popular online games, providing insights specific to each game and increasing the practical value of the findings.

Given the limited literature on depression as a contributing factor to compulsive social media use, the present research examines the role of perceived depressive mood (PDM) in developing compulsive social media use behavior. The authors also identify and hypothesize channels such as contingent self-esteem (CSE), social interaction anxiety (SIA) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE), which may explain how PDM affects compulsive social media use.

The research model was empirically tested with a survey of 367 Chinese university students using structural equation modeling by drawing on the escape and self-presentation lenses.

The findings indicate that PDM contributes to compulsive social media use behavior both directly and indirectly through CSE. Furthermore, the impact of CSE on compulsive social media use is mediated by the FNE, whereas SIA fails to mediate this effect.

The results can advance the authors’ knowledge of the role and process by which depressive mood impacts compulsive social media use. These findings may add insights into psychological treatment and help in, for example, developing counseling programs or coping strategies for depressed people to protect them from using social media excessively.

This research identifies the pathway mechanism between PDM and compulsive use of social media. It also increases the understanding of how CSE and social interaction deficiencies contribute to compulsive social media usage (CSMU).

This study aims to investigate the effect of social influence and value-driven mobile marketing activities on consumers’ acceptance of mobile marketing offers.

The method used is survey questionnaire. A proposed model was tested by using structural model analysis and data gathered from 356 Mexico consumers and 346 US consumers.

The study shows the number of peers and providing information are the main predictor variables of consumer acceptance of mobile marketing offers in both countries. These results suggest that social value factors are important variables for explaining consumers’ responses to mobile marketing offers across two countries characterized by dissimilar macro-environmental conditions.

The study’s overall implication about standardization vs adaptation is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries. One limitation in this study is the use of a convenience sample of undergraduate college students. This study did not control for different types of mobile phones and the screen sizes of mobile phones.

The overall implication of standardization vs adaptation from the study results is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries.

Unlike previous studies where the emphasis is to explicate the effect of value-oriented mobile activity, this study examines the combined effect of social influence and value-driven mobile activities on acceptance of mobile marketing.

Technology addiction is an increasingly severe problem. TikTok has become increasingly popular recently, and its addiction is also a major concern. This study aims to examine the antecedents and outcomes of TikTok addiction.

The authors collect 579 data from Chinese users using an online survey. The authors use structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS-SEM) to analyze data and test hypotheses.

The results illustrate that perceived enjoyment, social relationship, utilitarian need and social influence positively affect TikTok addiction. Both social anxiety and loneliness have positive effects on TikTok addiction. Moreover, parasocial relationships positively moderate the association between the antecedents of self-determination theory (SDT) (perceived enjoyment, social relationship, utilitarian needs, social influence, social anxiety and loneliness) and TikTok addiction. Meanwhile, TikTok addiction intensifies conflicts, including technology-family conflict, technology-person conflict and technology-work conflict. These conflicts reduce life satisfaction.

It offers practical implications for preventing and avoiding TikTok addiction to create a healthy environment.

This study is one of the few to provide a complete process of TikTok addiction. It systematically investigates the antecedents and outcomes of TikTok addiction.

The research purpose is to investigate the mediating and moderating relationships between smartphone addiction and well-being (i.e. health-related quality of life).

A survey of 236 smartphone users was used to test the research model.

The structural equation modeling analysis results show that smartphone addiction negatively impacts well-being by draining a key personal resource, energy, thus creating strain. The adverse effect of smartphone addiction on users' well-being is found to be more intense when smartphones are used for hedonic purposes.

Through the conservation of resources theory lens, this study increases our understanding of the role of strain in mediating the negative effect of smartphone addiction on well-being. This study also has practical implications. By exploring the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying when and how smartphone addiction can be detrimental to well-being, interventions can be carried out to mitigate the adverse effects on well-being.

Past research has focused on the antecedents and consequences of smartphone addiction while ignoring the contextual factors of smartphone addiction effects as well as the intervening mechanism through which smartphone addiction impacts well-being. Through the lens of the conservation of resources theory, we close this gap in the literature by providing a better understanding of the mechanism by which smartphone addiction reduces well-being and identifying a relevant contextual factor (i.e. hedonic use) that can worsen the impact of smartphone addiction on well-being.

Controversial information systems (IS) represent a unique context in which certain members of a user's social circle may endorse the use of a system while others object to it. The purpose of this paper is to explore the simultaneous and often conflicting roles of such positive and negative social influences through social learning and ambivalence theories in shaping user adoption intention of a representative case of controversial IS, namely online dating services (ODS).

The model was tested with two empirical studies using structural equation modeling techniques. The data of these studies were collected from 451 (Study 1) and 510 (Study 2) single individuals (i.e. not in a relationship).

(1) Positive social influence has a stronger impact on perceived benefits and adoption intention, while negative social influence exerts a greater impact on perceived risks; (2) positive and negative social influences affect adoption intention toward ODS differently, through benefit and risk assessments; and (3) ambivalence significantly negatively moderates the effects of social influences on adoption.

This study enriches and extends the IS use, ambivalence theory, prospect theory, and social learning theory research streams. Furthermore, this study suggests that it is necessary to focus on not only the oft-considered positive but also negative social influences in IS research.