The effects of technostress and switching stress on discontinued use of social networking services: a study of Facebook use

Abstract Although much research has been performed on the adoption and usage phases of the information systems life cycle, the final phase, termination, has received little attention. This paper focuses on the development of discontinuous usage intentions, i.e. the behavioural intention in the termination phase, in the context of social networking services (SNSs), where it plays an especially crucial role. We argue that users stressed by using SNSs try to avoid the stress and develop discontinuous usage intentions, which we identify as a behavioural response to SNS‐stress creators and SNS‐exhaustion. Furthermore, as discontinuing the use of an SNS also takes effort and has costs, we theorize that…