Exploring the influence of excessive social media use at work: A three-dimension usage perspective

Pervasive social media has resulted in technology dependency and excessive usage, which can lead to negative outcomes in organizations. This paper aims to investigate the effects of social media’s different excessive usage patterns on employee job performance and the corresponding underlying mechanism. Specifically, we propose three dimensions of excessive social media use at work (i.e., excessive social, hedonic, and cognitive). These dimensions are related to technology-work conflict and strain, which in turn decrease employee job performance. An empirical study of 305 social media users in organizations reveals that excessive social media use for socialization and entertainment can generate conflict between technology use and work demand, whereas excessive social media use for information-sharing reduces employees’ psychological strain. In addition, technology-work conflict and strain negatively influence job performance. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.