An empirical comparison of prominent theories of social media discontinuance: Toward a synthesized model

Abstract

Research on social media (SM) discontinuance draws on a range of theories and constructs to explain this phenomenon, making it difficult to evaluate the relative predictive strengths of these theories or identify common themes across their explanations. In this paper, we address these challenges by conducting an empirical comparison of eight prominent theories used to study SM discontinuance, based on survey data from 344 SM users. Building on these findings, we performed additional empirical comparisons and conceptual analyses and conducted a Delphi study to develop a proposed synthesized model of SM discontinuance. This model uses the theory of planned behavior as its core framework and incorporates six antecedent categories that reflect shared elements among the constructs from the examined theories. The synthesized model was empirically validated using the survey data, providing a cohesive explanation of key factors driving SM discontinuance. Our findings clarify which theories are most effective for predicting and explaining SM discontinuance and offer a streamlined framework that can serve as a foundation for future research on this topic.