Curvilinear performance effects of social cyberloafing out of class: the mediating role as a recovery experience

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate whether Chinese college students' social cyberloafing out of class has a curvilinear effect on academic performance and whether students' levels of psychological detachment and relaxation mediate the effect.Design/methodology/approachA field survey was used to collect 502 self-reported responses from student Internet users at a large university located in central China.FindingsThe results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between social cyberloafing out of class and academic performance. Two types of effort recovery experience gained from social cyberloafing, psychological detachment and relaxation, mediate that effect. Students' social cyberloafing out of class is positively associated with psychological detachment and relaxation, which in turn, have opposite effects on academic performance.Practical implicationsThis study offers novel insights into the effects of social cyberloafing on college students' academic achievement. The findings illustrate how social cyberloafing can serve as a recovery experience and improve academic performance, but it can hinder performance if the cyberloafing is excessive.Originality/valueThis study extends the cyberloafing literature by focusing on Chinese college students' cyberloafing out of class. The study finds that a moderate amount of social cyberloafing out of class can result in psychological detachment, relaxation and improved performance when returning to academic work. However, both too much or too little social cyberloafing can result in difficulty returning to academic work and reduced academic performance. The findings are novel to the cyberloafing literature.

Personal use of technology at work: a literature review and a theoretical model for understanding how it affects employee job performance

“…Coker, 2011). Therefore, we conjecture that the actual relationship between PUTW frequency/duration and executive attention is an inverted U-shape (Wu et al, 2021).…”

Correlation between cyberloafing and media consumption: Results of teenagers’ self-reports

“…First, researchers drew attention to the use of workplace Internet by employees in offices visiting non-work-related sites or check personal email (Lim, 2002). In the future, the range of such forms of behaviour will significantly expanded to include the following types of activity in the workplace: the use of social networks, online and offline games, instant messaging, video viewing, downloading games, applications, music and Internet shopping (Durak, 2020;Saritepeci, 2020;Wu, Mei, Liu & Ugrin, 2020a;Wu, Mei, Ugrin, Liu & Wang, 2020b). The widespread use of mobile Internet has led to the use of personal mobile devices during working hours to solve personal problems.…”

Authoritarian leadership and cyberloafing: A moderated mediation model of emotional exhaustion and power distance orientation

“…Emotional exhaustion induces a strong sense of self-resource protection and urge to seek additional resources ( Hobfoll, 2001 ). As a result, employees will avoid contact with supervisors and consider cyberloafing as a coping mechanism ( Andreassen et al, 2014 ; Khansa et al, 2017 ; Farivar and Richardson, 2020 ), and regain resources through online entertainment activities ( Koay et al, 2017 ; Wu et al, 2020a , b ). Therefore, the second research objective is to investigate the mediating role of emotional exhaustion between authoritarian leadership and employee cyberloafing.…”