EXPRESS: Digital Disposal: Self-Perceptions of Online Inauthenticity Promote Social Media Abandonment

The success of most social media platforms depends on their ability to attract and retain users. Although more than half of the world’s population uses some form of social media, consumers are increasingly discontinuing their use of these platforms. This research investigates a previously unexamined factor that influences consumers’ decisions to abandon (i.e., deactivate or delete) social media, users’ perceptions of their own inauthenticity on social media. Five studies (including one in the appendix) find that greater self-perceptions of online inauthenticity increase consumers’ willingness to abandon social media. Offering insight into the mechanism, the authors reveal the underlying role of self-threat. Specifically, perceived online self-inauthenticity threatens the self-concept, and consumers can counter this threat by disposing of the inauthentic social media account. That is, social media abandonment may be a compensatory response to the self-threat evoked by one’s own inauthenticity. Altogether, this work makes theoretical contributions to the literatures on social media use, identity, and service termination, while also providing guidance to social media platforms that seek to maintain active users and curtail abandonment.