Understanding the influence of social media on people’s life satisfaction through two competing explanatory mechanisms
| Date | 16 May 2016 |
| Published date | 16 May 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-12-2015-0195 |
| Pages | 347-361 |
| Author | Liuhan Zhan,Yongqiang Sun,Nan Wang,Xi Zhang |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
Understanding the influence of
social media on people’s life
satisfaction through two
competing explanatory
mechanisms
Liuhan Zhan, Yongqiang Sun and Nan Wang
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Xi Zhang
Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore how social media usage affects people’s life
satisfaction through two competing explanatory mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach –An online survey was conducted to collect data. And the partial
least squares method was used to examine the relationships among the usage of social media, social
benefit, social overload and life satisfaction.
Findings –The results indicate that usage of social media can make people achieve social benefit, thus
leading to enhanced life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, though usage of social media can bring the
negative consequences (e.g. social overload), social overload cannot predict a decreased life satisfaction.
Originality/value –Concentrating on the outcomes of social aspects by using social media, this study
proposes the double-sided role of social media instead of single effect.
Keywords Survey, User behaviour, Social media, Life satisfaction, Social benefit, Social overload
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
With the development of Web 2.0 technology, social media has permeated almost every
aspect of people’s lives. Especially in recent years, due to its own advantages, social
media has been experiencing a rapid rise. Social media is becoming an essential part of
people’s daily life and a prevailing tool of developing and maintaining relationships
(Elphinston and Noller, 2011). On the one hand, social media breaks the constraint of
space and time, allowing individuals interact anywhere and anytime. Convenient and
diverse forms of communication make people’s social life more colorful, providing users
various choices for connecting and getting familiar with friends, even strangers. On the
other hand, there are more individuals becoming dependent on social media, whic h may
induce numerous beneficial and detrimental outcomes of people’s physical and
psychological life (Porter et al., 2012).
Most people are constantly pursuing high life quality, seeking an enhanced well-
being. Life satisfaction is a cognitive and judgmental progress, which reflects a
subjective and global evaluation of a person’s quality of life (Diener et al., 1985). The
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 68 No. 3, 2016
pp. 347-361
©Emerald Group Publis hing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-12-2015-0195
Received 8 December 2015
Revised29February2016
Accepted 14 March 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
The work described in this paper was supported by the grants from the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Project No. 71201118, 71201155, 71571133) and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 410500133).
347
Influence of
social media
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