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A total of 1,058 responses were collected from 31 regions of China.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec>\n<jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>The regression results show that WeChat addiction is negatively associated with users\u2019 physical, mental, and social health. The negative effects are significant even after adjusting for the effects of the Big Five personality traits, years of using WeChat, and demographic variables such as age, gender, education level, and monthly income. Years of using WeChat is not significantly related to users\u2019 health. It is also found that the influence of WeChat addiction on health outcomes is sensitive to years of WeChat use. The influence is dormant when users have less than three years of WeChat usage, but starts to exhibit itself after three years.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec>\n<jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Addictive use of WeChat is associated with declining overall health among Chinese users. Given the cross-sectional nature of this study, definite causal relationship between WeChat addiction and health deterioration cannot be established. Controlled experiments are needed to further examine the causal effects of WeChat addiction.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec>\n<jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>WeChat is the most popular mobile social network service (SNS) in China, but its comprehensive impact on users\u2019 health is rarely studied. This paper extends the extant research on SNS addiction by providing a deepened understanding of how mobile SNS addiction affects personal health in the unique context of WeChat, which provides an important contribution to the interdisciplinary research in public health, psychology, and information systems.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/intr-05-2017-0198","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,2,13]],"date-time":"2018-02-13T07:21:10Z","timestamp":1518506470000},"page":"278-292","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":53,"title":["Investigating the impact of mobile SNS addiction on individual\u2019s self-rated health"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"28","author":[{"given":"Yajiong","family":"Xue","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yuanyuan","family":"Dong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mengyun","family":"Luo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dandan","family":"Mo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Dong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhiruo","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Huigang","family":"Liang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"key2020100209311805700_ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"477","DOI":"10.1086\/671052","article-title":"Extended self in a digital world","volume":"40","year":"2013","journal-title":"Journal of Consumer Research"},{"key":"key2020100209311805700_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"171","DOI":"10.1016\/j.chb.2014.01.029","article-title":"Being unfriended on Facebook: an application of expectancy violation theory","volume":"33","year":"2014","journal-title":"Computers in Human Behavior"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020100209311805700_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"203","DOI":"10.1089\/cpb.2008.0102","article-title":"Internet addiction: metasynthesis of 1996-2006 quantitative research","volume":"12","year":"2009","journal-title":"CyberPsychology & Behavior"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020100209311805700_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"721","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1460-2466.2005.tb03019.x","article-title":"A social skill account of problematic internet use","volume":"55","year":"2005","journal-title":"Journal of Communication"},{"issue":"10","key":"key2020100209311805700_ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"728","DOI":"10.1089\/cyber.2012.0272","article-title":"Sharing, liking, commenting, and distressed? 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