Addressing athlete social media distractions during events: examining effective and ineffective approaches
Based on the understanding that social media can distract athletes and impact performance during major sport events, this research sought to understand how sport organizations help athletes address social media distractions. Underpinned by social cognitive theory, the research adopted a phenomenological qualitative research design to two studies. Study One analyzed sport organizations’ social media policies while Study Two used interviews with 15 current Olympians to uncover the effectiveness of their approaches. Three themes emerged including best practices education, insufficient social media policies and frameworks, and personalized support. The research identified proactive and reactive measures used to manage social media distractions. The findings contribute to social cognitive theory by revealing athletes’ openness to learning new ways to manage social media use during events and draw from the experiences of peers. The findings can inform event management practice through real-time support of athletes on event grounds as well as through active promotion of healthy social media use in and around an event.
History
School
- Loughborough University London
Published in
Event ManagementVolume
27Issue
5Pages
763 - 780Publisher
Cognizant Communication CorporationVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© Cognizant, LLC.Publisher statement
The following article: Michelle Hayes, Kevin Filo, Caroline Riot & Andrea Geurin (2023) Addressing athlete social media distractions during events: examining effective and ineffective approaches, Event Management, 27 (5), 763-780, https://doi.org/10.3727/152599523X16830662072080, is reproduced here with the permission of the publisher. The article(s) and/or figure(s) cannot be used for resale.Publication date
2023-06-09Copyright date
2023ISSN
1525-9951eISSN
1943-4308Publisher version
Language
- en