Understanding Technology-Mediated Self-Regulation in Hedonic IS/IT Use: Implications for Preventing Social Networking Site Addiction

Over the past two decades, the use of hedonic information systems/information technology (IS/IT)has been extensively researched across various technological contexts. Although hedonic IS/IT mayprovide a variety of benefits, it also manifests a dark side and can have deleterious consequences forusers. For instance, some people develop a compulsion to constantly visit social networking sites (SNSs),spending hours at a time checking status updates; some people spend excessive periods in online games,resulting in negative consequences in other areas of life. Indeed, anecdotal evidence indicates thattechnology addiction has become prevalent over the globe, and can result in detrimental negativeconsequences. As with any negative consequences, prevention of technology addiction is far moreeffective and financially beneficial than treatment. More importantly, prevention holds back the rapidlyincreased number of technology addicts and reduces diverse types of personal, organizational and societaldamages. Among models, strategies, and various techniques that have been devised to prevent addiction,self-regulation strategies are found to be one of the most effective methods of cognitive-behavioralinterventions. In that sense, the initiation of technology addiction could likely be ameliorated by theenhancement of one’s self-regulation.However, research on the remedies for prevention of technology addiction remains very new in the ISliterature. Prior studies on the dark side of IS/IT use mostly focus on technology addiction and itsnegative consequences instead of how technology addiction could be prevented. Specifically, there islittle understanding of how technological design features can enhance one’s self-regulation and thusprevent technology addiction. While most of the IS studies have focused on examining the effects of self-regulationon technology use, the self-regulatory mechanisms, namely self-monitoring, self-judgment, andself-reaction, as well as the role of technological design features on enhancing each of these selfregulatorysub-functions was largely overlooked. More research is thus needed to systematically explainhow self-regulatory mechanisms operate and what technological design features enhance a user’s self-regulationin order to provide insights into preventing technology addiction.To bridge the research gap, this research project draws upon the social cognitive theory of self-regulationto explain how IS/IT could be properly used by identifying technological design features thatcan enhance one’s self-regulation in hedonic IS/IT use, as well as by developing a research model toexplain how technological design features influence one’s hedonic IS/IT use through the self-regulatorymechanisms. In particular, the three objectives of the projects are: (1) to identify technological designfeatures that can enhance one’s self-regulation in hedonic IS/IT; (2) to develop a research modelexplaining how technological design features influence one’s hedonic IS/IT use through the self-regulationmechanisms, and (3) to raise public and professional awareness of the use of technology-mediatedself-regulation mechanisms to prevent technology addiction. We will test the research modelusing a multi-method design with SNS users. We expect that this study will contribute to our theoreticalunderstanding of the role of self-regulation in technology addiction, as well as offer a set of actionabledesign principles for game designers to enhance users’ self-regulatory mechanisms.