Social Media Overload and Fatigue: The Moderating Role of Multitasking Computer Self-Efficacy Completed Research

This paper investigates the moderating role of multitasking computer self-efficacy on the relationship between social media overload and social media fatigue. We conceptualize social media overload using two dimensions (i.e. information overload and communication overload) and hypothesize that these two dimensions affect social media fatigue. In addition, we also hypothesize that multitasking computer self-efficacy will attenuate the effects of these two dimensions on social media fatigue. We test the model by collecting data from 131 students from an Irish university. Partial Least Squares techniques were used to test the model. The findings suggest that both information overload and communication overload significantly affect social media fatigue, although, the effect of communication overload is more critical than that of information overload. Furthermore, our study results suggest that multitasking computer self-efficacy attenuates the effect of information overload, and reinforces the effect of communication overload on social media fatigue.