PACIS 2019 Proceedings

Abstract

The effect of social media on users’ well-being is inevitable. Some phenomena that occur when people interact (e.g. emotional blackmailing, bullying), have adapted themselves to the virtual environment. Despite numerous studies about the negative effects of social media, there have not been any studies that addressed the problem of emotional blackmail on social media. This study explores emotional blackmail, particularly by using social capital theory, to investigate how each dimension of social capital affects emotional blackmail and how emotional blackmail affects users’ well-being and perceived stress. A survey conducted on 127 international students in Taiwan reveals that social media consumption is associated with higher emotional blackmail. Furthermore, each dimension of social capital is associated with decreased emotional blackmail and increase users’ perceived stress. More importantly, emotional blackmail is also found to reduce users’ well-being. This study contributes to the body of information systems research by investigating the unfavorable effects of social media usage.

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