Although much research has been done on the adoption and usage phases of the IS life cycle, the final phase, termination, has received little attention. This paper focuses on the development of discontinuous usage intentions, i.e. the behavioral intention in the termination phase, in the context of social networking services (SNSs), where it plays an especially crucial role. We argue that users stressed by using SNSs try to avoid the stress and develop discontinuous usage intentions, which we identify as a behavioral response to SNS-stress creators and SNS-exhaustion. Furthermore, as discontinuing the use of an SNS also takes effort and has costs, we theorize that switching-stress creators and switching-exhaustion reduce discontinuous usage intentions. We tested and validated these effects empirically in an experimental setting monitoring individuals who stopped using Facebook for a certain time period and switched to alternatives. Our results show that SNS-stress creators and SNS-exhaustion cause discontinuous usage intentions, and switching-stress creators and switching-exhaustion reduce these intentions.