Exploring the impact of envy and admiration on social media fatigue: Social media loneliness and anxiety as mediators

Abstract

With the rapid expansion of online socializing, social media fatigue has become increasingly common among users. Envy and admiration are very common emotions in online social interactions. We usually consider envy a negative emotion and admiration a positive emotion. Nevertheless, does envy inevitably increase social media fatigue? Does admiration always alleviate social media fatigue? To answer these questions, this paper explores the impacts of two forms of envy (i.e., benign envy and malicious envy) and two forms of admiration (i.e., elevation and skill admiration) on social media fatigue through the mediators of social media loneliness and social media anxiety. The data were collected from 581 WeChat users, and the results showed that benign envy aggravated social media fatigue through the mediator of social media anxiety, while malicious envy aggravated social media fatigue through the mediators of both social media loneliness and anxiety. However, although admiration is often considered a positive emotion, it does not always have a positive effect. Elevation relieved social media fatigue through the mediator of social media loneliness, while skill admiration aggravated social media fatigue through the mediator of social media anxiety. Overall, the findings offer useful implications for alleviating social media fatigue.