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Too much or too little messaging? Situational determinants of guilt about mobile messenger usage
Halfmann, Annabell
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Meier, Adrian
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Reinecke, Leonard
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Document Type:
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Conference presentation
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Year of publication:
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2020
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Conference title:
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ICA 2020 - 70th Annual International Communication Association Conference
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Location of the conference venue:
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Online
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Date of the conference:
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21.-25.05.2020
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Publication language:
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English
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Institution:
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School of Humanities > Medien- und Kommunikationswisseschaft (Vorderer 2010-)
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Subject:
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150 Psychology
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Abstract:
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Mobile messaging offers users many advantages, but has also been associated with lowered emotional well-being, specifically, feelings of guilt. To explain guilt about too much messenger use, self-control research points to conflicts with primary goals and tasks. Conversely, research on the social norm to be available suggests that too little messenger use may also trigger guilt reactions. The current research integrates these perspectives and adds a self-determination theory lens. Our work has two aims. First, we investigate how guilty individuals feel about using versus not using messengers. Second, by considering both boundary conditions of guilt about messenger usage simultaneously, namely goal conflicts and availability norm salience, we test whether the dilemma resulting from both conditions (high goal conflict and high availability norm salience) interacts in evoking guilt. Hypotheses were tested with two preregistered studies, a vignette experiment (Study 1) and a laboratory experiment (Study 2). Results from Study 1, but not from Study 2, support the hypotheses that goal conflicts trigger guilt about using messengers and that guilt about not using messengers arises if the availability norm is salient. In both studies, using messengers elicited more guilt than not using messengers. Moreover, our findings did not indicate that the two boundary conditions interacted in influencing guilt. The research overall points to the importance of inter- and intrapersonal norms when studying effects of mobile use on emotional well-being.
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