Problematic use of social media: The influence of social environmental forces and the mediating role of copresence

Abstract

People's dependence on technology in the digital environment has increasingly become the focus of academic and social attention. Social media, in particular, with the functions of connecting with others and maintaining interactions, has become an inseparable part of people's lives. Although the formation of problematic use of social media has been extensively discussed by scholars, it is mainly confined to the individual level and lacks a macro perspective from the external environment. This study draws on the perspective of institutional theory and introduces copresence as a mediating role, aiming to investigate the influence mechanism of social environmental forces on individuals' problematic use of social media. An online survey (N = 462) was conducted to collect data and test the research model. Our data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Results show that social environmental forces exert an impact on problematic use of social media through the sense of copresence, and only mimetic force can directly affect behavior outcomes while the other two forces can not. Besides, social environmental forces have a relationship with people's sense of copresence while using social media. Among them, mimetic force and normative force positively correlate with copresence while coercive force is negatively related to copresence. Furthermore, copresence is found to influence problematic use of social media positively. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.