Scholars have drawn increasing attention to the implications of the dark side of social media
for users’ online subjective well-being (OSWB). We develop a research framework based on
the limited-capacity model to examine the relationship between OSWB and social media
fatigue. Moreover, we explore the associations between specific ...
Scholars have drawn increasing attention to the implications of the dark side of social media
for users’ online subjective well-being (OSWB). We develop a research framework based on
the limited-capacity model to examine the relationship between OSWB and social media
fatigue. Moreover, we explore the associations between specific aspects related to network
heterogeneity and social media fatigue for social media users in the United States of America
(USA). Further, we examine the mediating effect of network heterogeneity on the association
between OSWB and social media fatigue. We utilised a cross-sectional research design to
collect data from Prolific Academic (N = 320) and analysed the data through structural
equation modelling. The results indicate that OSWB is positively correlated with the network
heterogeneity aspect of self-disclosure and negatively correlated with social comparison.
OSWB, moreover, is negatively correlated with fatigue, while privacy concerns and selfdisclosure are positively correlated with fatigue. Further, of the network heterogeneity
aspects we considered, only social comparison is a partial mediator for the relationship
between OSWB and social media fatigue. The findings provide insights into the pathways
through which social media users’ OSWB and network heterogeneity can induce social media
fatigue, raising critical implications for theory and practice.
