Social media fatigue and the circulation of fake news: modelling social media fatigue as the mediator of the predictors of fake news sharing behaviour on social media

To comprehend the mediating function that social media fatigue plays in the relationship between the antecedents of social media fatigue and the spreading of fake news, a model was created specifically for this study. We gathered information from 1550 respondents via an online survey, however, we only used 1200 valid answers for analysis. The analysis was conducted using Smart PLS 3. We discovered that the main cause of social media tiredness is excessive usage of social media. System feature overload, social comparison, self-disclosure, and information overload are additional aspects linked to social media tiredness. Additionally, we discovered that distributing bogus news is directly impacted by social media weariness. Social media fatigue totally mediated the association between social comparison, self-disclosure, information overload, system feature overload, excessive social media use, and the spread of bogus news. This result has consequences for theory and practice, which were also emphasised in the research’s conclusion.