Understanding the failing of social gamification: A perspective of user fatigue

Social gamification design has been widely used in various industries to enhance user engagement. Although social gamification design can help to shape user behavior to some extent, this design mechanism has significant negative effects on users. Few studies have explored the relationship between social gamification and user fatigue. To fill this research gap, we constructed an empirical research model based on the transactional theory of stress and coping and explored the impact of social gamification on users’ psychological stress (reputation maintenance concern and fear of missing out) and fatigue, as well as the moderating effects of player type (achievers and socializers) in this process. To test our research hypotheses, we collected information from 450 users via a questionnaire. The empirical results reveal that social gamification competition and interactivity are positively associated with reputation maintenance concern, which is positively related to fear of missing out and user fatigue. Additionally, our research determined that being an achiever positively moderates the relationships between competition, reputation maintenance concern, and fear of missing out, while being a socializer positively moderates the relationships between interactivity, reputation maintenance concern, and fear of missing out. Our results are helpful in understanding the negative effects of social gamification design and contribute to the literature on social gamification and user fatigue. © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.