Adverse effect of social media on generation Z user?s behavior: Government information support as a moderating variable

Social media emerged as a primary source of information among young users, but its severe effect on mental state due to information overload, still an area of concern for the researchers. Generation Z users' addiction to the mobile phone/gadgets is increasing with a rise in social media and consequently their behavioral outcomes have transformed completely. Nowadays behavioral issues including stress, fatigue, 'fear of missing out' and 'phub-bing', anxiety etc. rising each day but the relationship among these issues and information overload is less examined. The social media users are unable to filter the trustworthy information due to its enormous size and thus role of information support from government becomes essential. The current study extends the S-O-R theory exploring relationship between the stimulus of enormous information on the responses generated among the Generation Z such as social media fatigue, 'fear of missing out', 'phubbing' and anxiety. The findings from a sample of 319 users belonging to Generation Z suggest that social media platforms need to understand user's compulsive usage that is resulting into fatigue and consequently anxiety. The role of government information support on reducing fatigue and anxiety is found to be positive. The relationship between 'fear of missing out', 'phubbing' and anxiety is found significant and shows presence of partial mediation. The study offers significant theoretical and practical implications. It is significant for the service providers and social media platforms to advance interfaces with minimum fatigue for the users and offers information support to the users to reduce stress caused by information load.

Automated summary

Social media has become a major source of information for young users, but it has a severe impact on mental state due to information overload, which is still a concern for researchers. The addiction of Generation Z users to mobile phones/gadgets is increasing with the rise of social media, leading to a complete transformation in their behavioral outcomes. Behavioral issues such as stress, fatigue, fear of missing out, phubbing, and anxiety are on the rise, but the relationship between these issues and information overload has not been sufficiently examined. The study finds that social media platforms need to understand users' compulsive usage, which results in fatigue and anxiety, and government information support plays a positive role in reducing fatigue and anxiety.