SNS-induced negative emotions and discontinuance decisions

Why people discontinue the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) is a topic that has been recently attracting more attention from IS scholars. Although negative emotions are recognized to play an important role in SNSs user’s discontinuance decisions, research connecting both concepts has been surprisingly scarce. This theory development paper delineates how negative emotions derived from the use of SNSs may lead users to engage in discontinuance behaviors. Online, retrospective, prospective, and anticipated negative emotions are advanced as four distinct kinds of reactions influencing users’ SNSs discontinue decisions. The association among these kinds of emotions is also described. In contrast to prior works, various individual negative emotions and their potential elicitors are considered. This article’s main contribution is the development of a more accurate conceptual description of SNS-induced negative emotions which can serve as better guidance for future empirical studies targeting the discontinuance of this technology