Understanding online regret experience using the theoretical lens of flow experience

• The study investigates the effects of online users' regret experience.
• Regret is linked to dissatisfaction, brand switching, and service discontinuity.
• Existing research has not fully explained how the regret experience can be predicted.
• Playfulness and user-focused attention increase the incidence of regret experiences.

Recent research has emphasized the exponential increase in the online regret experience among online users. Such experience results in poor satisfaction, brand switching, and even service discontinuity. However, little prior research has investigated the relative influence of online platform characteristics and individual differences (such as demographics) in predicting the online regret experience. To address this gap, a pen-and-paper cross-sectional survey was organized with 804 adolescent (aged 13–17 years) Facebook users. The study utilized a theoretical framework of flow experience to understand the online regret experience and investigated the relative influence of demographic variables (age, gender, time spent, and service use experience) and flow experience components in predicting the online regret experience. Older adolescents and those spending more daily time on Facebook were more likely to experience higher online regret than their younger counterparts and those spending less daily time on Facebook. There were no significant gender-related or Facebook use experience-related differences in the tendency to experience online regret. The increase in playfulness and users’ focused attention on Facebook led to higher levels of online regret experience. The practical and theoretical implications of this study for both practitioners and researchers are discussed.