Internet addiction as a manageable resource: a focus on social network services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret addiction to social network services (SNSs), not from the traditional clinical perspective as a disorder, but from a management perspective as consumer behaviour to examine its possibility as a manageable resource. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted on heavy users of SNSs. Based on the data the authors performed an exploratory factor analysis to define SNS addiction and to construct its dimensions. Findings – The authors termed SNS addiction as an “addictive consumption trait” (ACT) of SNS and its underlying dimensions are salience, euphoria, immersion, compulsion, and association. Research limitations/implications – The authors used SNS user behaviour as the sample for their empirical analysis. However there is a variety of other internet services available and different internet services may show different consumer behaviour. Therefore, for future research, the authors suggest conducting a comparative study on the influence of addiction on different types of internet services. Practical implications – With the newly constructed dimensions of ACT of SNS, firms could find out the causal relationships between the attributes of their SNSs on each dimension of ACT of SNS. Once firms understand the influences of each one of the attributes on ACT of SNS, they can re‐strategise their resource allocation for maximising consumers' ACT of SNS. Originality/value – SNS addiction has been viewed as a clinical disorder for treatment. The paper considers SNS addiction from the marketing perspective, which is a novel approach in the study of addiction. Through this study the authors hope to trigger academic discussions about ACT of SNS as consumer behaviour and as a manageable resource.