This document introduces the academic article titled “Preoccupation with Social Media and Employee Performance“. The paper was authored by Dilek Şahin, Yusuf Karaşin, Abraham Stefanidis, and Moshe Banai. It is scheduled to be published in the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction in May 2025. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for this publication is 10.1080/10447318.2025.2504187.
The core of this study investigates the intricate relationship between cognitive preoccupation with social media and employee performance, specifically focusing on the healthcare industry in Turkey. The authors delve into how various social media usage patterns and norms, which differ significantly across industries and cultures, might influence this relationship.
Key Objectives and Theoretical Frameworks: The primary purpose of this study is to examine the moderating roles of task-oriented and relationship-oriented social media use on the link between social media engagement (cognitive preoccupation) and employee performance among healthcare professionals. The research is grounded in two significant theoretical perspectives:
- Social Cognition Theory: This theory suggests that individuals can regulate their behavior to achieve desired outcomes. In this context, it helps explain how employees, when believing social media can yield positive job results, might use it in a task-oriented manner to control the negative impact of cognitive preoccupation.
- Social Capital Theory: This framework posits that employees who build social networks through relationship-oriented social media use can increase their interaction with the business environment and enhance their social capital, thus potentially boosting business potential and employee performance.
Central Concepts:
- Cognitive Preoccupation with Social Media (PR): Defined as stressor-related factual thinking that is time-consuming and often associated with negative emotions. While related to addiction, the study clarifies that it is considered a component that precedes the addiction process or a risk factor. It signifies a situation where social networks become the most significant activity, dominating thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It can also manifest as users reducing interpersonal interaction outside online relationships and moving away from face-to-face contact.
- Task-Oriented Social Media Use (TOSMU): This refers to the use of social media for work-related purposes, helping employees acquire specialized knowledge, solve problems, develop professional standing, and enhance their ability to perform their job effectively.
- Relationship-Oriented Social Media Use (ROSMU): This involves using social media to build and maintain work-related relationships and professional networks, fostering communication and collaboration among colleagues and other stakeholders.
- Employee Performance (PER): This study measured self-reported actual behavioral engagement in organizational tasks, encompassing job-explicit behaviors and fundamental responsibilities.
The study employed a cross-sectional research design to collect data from a large sample. Survey questionnaires were administered face-to-face to 331 healthcare professionals working in six private and public hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey. The sample size was determined to be statistically sufficient. Participants’ characteristics varied across age, work experience, gender, education, sector, and daily social media usage. The measurement tools for Task-Oriented Social Media Use, Relationship-Oriented Social Media Use, Cognitive Preoccupation, and Employee Performance were adapted and validated for the Turkish context. Statistical analyses, including Harman’s single-factor test, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Hayes’s PROCESS macro, were used to test hypotheses.
Key Findings: The research yielded several significant findings:
- Hypothesis 1 Supported: A significant negative relationship was observed between cognitive preoccupation (PR) and employee performance (PER). This suggests that as cognitive preoccupation with social media increases, employee performance tends to decrease.
- Hypothesis 2 Supported: Task-oriented social media use (TOSMU) was found to positively moderate the negative relationship between cognitive preoccupation and employee performance. This means that when employees use social media for task-oriented purposes, the detrimental effect of cognitive preoccupation on their performance is mitigated, especially at low and medium levels of TOSMU.
- Hypothesis 3 Supported: Similarly, relationship-oriented social media use (ROSMU) also positively moderated the relationship between cognitive preoccupation and employee performance. This indicates that using social media to build and maintain work-related relationships can help alleviate the negative impact of cognitive preoccupation, particularly at low and moderate levels of ROSMU.
Implications:
- Theoretical Implications: The study enhances existing theories by:
- Generalizing the negative impact of excessive social media use on employee performance to the healthcare sector and to the Turkish collectivist culture.
- Refining social cognition and social capital theories by applying the constructs of cognitive preoccupation, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented social media uses to explain the relationship between social media use and employee performance.
- Providing empirical evidence for examining social media usage types under separate categories.
- Practical Implications: The findings offer valuable insights for organizations and managers:
- Highlighting the need for policies regarding social media use in the workplace, as most organizations currently lack them.
- Suggesting the implementation of training programs to help employees recognize symptoms and consequences of problematic social media use.
- Emphasizing that task-oriented and relationship-oriented social media use can increase productivity and reduce negative impacts, advocating for specific policies and guidelines for their appropriate integration.
- Recommending increasing the visibility of positive role models and rewarding proper social media use as early intervention strategies.
The study acknowledges limitations, including its cross-sectional design, which limits the establishment of temporal and cause-and-effect relationships. The reliance on self-reported performance measures is also noted as a limitation due to potential biases. Future research is encouraged to use objective performance measures, such as supervisor-generated evaluations, and to employ longitudinal or mixed designs for in-depth examination. The study also calls for comparable studies in other industries and cultures, especially in individualist countries, to generalize findings cross-culturally.
In conclusion, this research underscores the critical importance of understanding how social media is used in the workplace. It sheds light on both the detrimental and beneficial roles of task-oriented and relationship-oriented social media engagement within the Turkish healthcare industry, asserting that these universal issues apply across various industries and cultures. The authors summarize social media as “both a dark and brilliant thing for human progress”.
References: Şahin, D., Karaşin, Y., Stefanidis, A., & Banai, M. (2025). Preoccupation with Social Media and Employee Performance. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2025.2504187