International Journal of Advances in Applied Sciences
Vol 15, No 3: September 2026

Predicting perceived information overload from social media use: a machine learning approach

Mohamad Noorman Masrek (Universiti Teknologi MARA)
Endang Fitriyah Mannan (Universitas Airlangga)
Zulfatun Sofiyani (Universitas Airlangga)
Atiqa Nur Latifa Hanum (Universitas Tanjungpura)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Sep 2026

Abstract

The rapid growth of social media has intensified users’ exposure to large volumes of information, increasing the risk of perceived information overload. While prior studies have primarily examined this phenomenon using explanatory models, limited attention has been given to its prediction. This study aims to predict perceived information overload from social media use using a machine learning approach. Data were collected through a survey of 349 university students in Malaysian higher education institutions. Social media use across multiple platforms was used as input features, while perceived information overload was treated as a binary target variable. Several machine learning algorithms were evaluated, including decision tree, random forest, k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, neural network, naïve Bayes, and logistic regression. The results indicate that social media usage patterns contain predictive value for identifying information overload, with the support vector machine demonstrating the strongest discriminative performance. The study contributes to the literature by complementing existing explanatory research with a predictive perspective and highlights the potential of machine learning techniques for early identification of information overload in social media environments.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

IJAAS

Publisher

Subject

Earth & Planetary Sciences Environmental Science Materials Science & Nanotechnology Mathematics Physics

Description

International Journal of Advances in Applied Sciences (IJAAS) is a peer-reviewed and open access journal dedicated to publish significant research findings in the field of applied and theoretical sciences. The journal is designed to serve researchers, developers, professionals, graduate students and ...