Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 64, November 2016, Pages 65-76
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
“Facebocrastination”? Predictors of using Facebook for procrastination and its effects on students’ well-being

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Using Facebook (FB) to procrastinate tasks is common among students.

  • Trait self-control (TSC), FB habits, and FB enjoyment predicted procrastination.

  • Procrastination with FB increased students’ academic stress and FB-induced strains.

  • Procrastination mediated the effects of TSC, habits, and enjoyment on well-being.

  • Conclusion: Procrastinating with FB can impair users’ well-being.

Abstract

Procrastinating with popular online media such as Facebook has been suggested to impair users’ well-being, particularly among students. Building on recent procrastination, self-control, and communication literature, we conducted two studies (total N = 699) that examined the predictors of procrastination with Facebook as well as its effects on students’ academic and overall well-being. Results from both studies consistently indicate that low trait self-control, habitual Facebook checking, and high enjoyment of Facebook use predict almost 40 percent of the variance of using Facebook for procrastination. Moreover, results from Study 2 underline that using Facebook for the irrational delay of important tasks increases students’ academic stress levels and contributes to the negative well-being effects of Facebook use beyond the academic domain. The implications of investigating procrastination as a specific pattern of uncontrolled and dysfunctional media use are discussed with regard to research on the uses and effects of ubiquitous online media.

Introduction

The pervasive access to social media such as Facebook creates new self-control challenges for a growing number of Internet users in different spheres of life (e.g., Hofmann et al., 2012, Masur et al., 2014, Panek, 2014, Xu et al., 2016). Student users, in particular, report that the social network site (SNS) Facebook ‘makes them’ lose track of time and that they delay tasks they actually intended to get done, such as writing term papers or preparing for final exams, ‘because of Facebook’ (e.g, Rosen, Carrier, & Cheever, 2013). Studies finding a negative relationship between conscientiousness and Facebook use among students suggest that low self-control may be a central driver of this unintended Facebook use (e.g., Lee-Won et al., 2015, Wilson et al., 2010). Moreover, research on the uses and gratifications of social media has consistently identified the use of Facebook “to put off something I should be doing” (Quan-Haase & Young, 2010, p. 356) as one of the strongest motives of Facebook use (Papacharissi and Mendelson, 2011, Smock et al., 2011).

Students, in particular, seem to irrationally delay (i.e., procrastinate) important academic tasks in favor of Facebook use, which has been suggested to be responsible for a large part of the negative relationship between Facebook use and academic performance (Junco, 2012, Kirschner and Karpinski, 2010, Panek, 2014, Rosen et al., 2013, Thompson, 2013). Moreover, initial evidence indicates that procrastination with Facebook is particularly detrimental to students’ well-being (Hinsch & Sheldon, 2013), which is supported by research on the negative consequences of general, non-media-related procrastinatory behavior among students (Kim and Seo, 2015, Sirois and Kitner, 2015, Steel, 2007).

Although Facebook is among the most widely used online applications around the globe (Alexa, 2015, Facebook, 2015, Pew Research Center, 2015) and several independent lines of research suggest that Facebook is a frequently used, but detrimental “tool for procrastination” (Lavoie & Pychyl, 2001, p. 433) among students, evidence of this practice of ‘Facebocrastination’ is scarce. The present research thus aims at furthering our limited understanding of the uses and effects of procrastination with the popular SNS Facebook. Specifically, the predictors of procrastination with Facebook and its effects on academic and overall well-being will be investigated.

In the following section, we will first review evidence on media-related procrastination based on the prevailing understanding of procrastination as irrational task delay (Sirois and Pychyl, 2013, Steel, 2007). By conceptualizing procrastination with Facebook as a self-control failure (Hofmann et al., 2009, Steel, 2007), we will then identify dispositional (trait self-control) and Facebook-specific precursors (habitual Facebook checking and enjoyment of Facebook use) that could predict the frequency of procrastination with Facebook. Moreover, we will discuss the potentially detrimental effects of procrastination with Facebook on students’ academic and overall well-being. Based on two studies using data from two student samples, we will subsequently address the predictors (Studies 1 and 2) and effects (Study 2) of procrastination with Facebook. The results will be discussed with regard to their implications for everyday social media use as well as future research on the uses and effects of constantly available online media.

Section snippets

Media as “tools for procrastination”

Consistent with recent procrastination literature, we define procrastination as the “self-regulatory failure of not exerting self-control necessary for task engagement” (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013, p. 116). Essentially, procrastinators give in to pleasant short-term temptations such as checking Facebook instead of engaging in intended, but subjectively aversive tasks such as writing a term paper. According to this typical procrastination scenario, the procrastinatory activity (i.e., checking

Participants

In Study 1, hypotheses H1single bondH3 were tested with data from a convenience sample of student Facebook users. Participants were recruited by 30 undergraduate students through their online social networks on Facebook. Our student recruiters were enrolled in the communication program at a large University in Germany. Recruiters were asked to distribute the link to an open online survey among their friends on Facebook via public status updates, by posting in Facebook groups, or by writing personal

Participants

We conducted a second online survey with data from another convenience sample of student Facebook users from Germany. Analogously to Study 1, participants were recruited via undergraduates’ social networks on Facebook. Our 28 student recruiters were enrolled in the communication program at the same University as in Study 1 and followed the same procedure as in Study 1. In contrast to Study1, however, non-student participants were filtered out at the beginning of the survey, rather than excluded

General discussion

Several lines of research suggest that Facebook is a frequently used ‘tool for procrastination’, which could be particularly detrimental to the well-being of students. The central aim of this study was to integrate and extend previous findings on the procrastinatory use of Facebook. Specifically, our goal was to a) identify important predictors of procrastination with popular online media such as Facebook and b) investigate whether frequent procrastination with Facebook affects students’

Conclusion

Overall, the present research furthers our understanding of uncontrolled and potentially detrimental media use by investigating what drives students’ use of Facebook for procrastination. The results from our two studies crucially extend prior research on media use and procrastination by demonstrating that trait self-control and users’ specific patterns and appraisal of Facebook use (i.e., habitualization and enjoyment) are crucial predictors of procrastination with Facebook. Moreover, our

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