With the rapid development of mobile communications technologies, social apps (e.g., Line, WeChat) have emerged as important communication tools. Although social apps provide people with additional convenience, overuse of such applications may have negative life effects, such as technostress and distraction. Past research has indicated that personality attributes contribute to compulsive usage. This study explores the relationships between personality attributes and compulsive usage of social apps, and examines the impact of technostress on academic performance. A total of 136 valid questionnaires were collected from university students through an online survey. Fourteen proposed hypotheses were examined using SmartPLS software. The results indicate that extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism have significant effects on compulsive usage of mobile social applications. Compulsive usage had a significant positive impact on technostress but did not negatively affect academic self-perception and course grades. In addition, conscientiousness significantly influenced academic self-perception. Unexpectedly, gender and number of friends had little influence on technostress or compulsive usage. The implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research are offered. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.