Exploring the antecedents of technostress and compulsive mobile application usage: Personality perspectives

Abstract

Mobile social applications make people’s communication easier, but the overuse of smartphones will bring negative effects on our lives. Past research has demonstrated that personality traits were associated with excessive mobile phone use. However, few studies use personality theory to explore the antecedents of compulsive mobile application usage. There, this study explored the effects of the big five personality traits on compulsive usage of mobile social application and examined the influence of compulsive usage on technostress. A total of 389 valid questionnaires were collected by online survey method. The seven hypotheses proposed were examined by SmartPLS software. The results showed that neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness had significant effects on compulsive usage of mobile social applications. In addition, neuroticism, openness to experience, and compulsive usage significantly influenced technostress. Finally, this study discussed the implications of these findings and offered directions for future research.