Social anxiety as a bridge linking past and future social media use: A perspective from social comparison theory and social support theory

Although the studies on social media use have become mature, the linkage between past and future social media use has been rarely examined, especially from the dark side. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between past and future social media use by introducing social anxiety as a bridge to explain why some initial users of social media quit from the platform later. Specifically, it is a theoretical paper including a framework and plans for empirical study. Drawing upon the social comparison theory and social support theory, we identify three types of social media use (e.g., information consumption, information communication, and information creation) and clarify how they affect social anxiety through two different mechanisms. We also examine the boundary conditions under which the proposed relationships work by considering the moderating effects of self-esteem and feedback. Further, we also argue that social anxiety may further influence the three types of future social media use in different ways