Social support through online social networking sites and addiction among college students: The mediating roles of fear
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Social support through online social networking sites and addiction among college students: The mediating roles of fear of missing out and problematic smartphone use Chang Liu 1 & Jianling Ma 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Although prior research has found that receipt of social support through social networking sites is a significant predictor of Facebook addiction, the mechanism underlying this association remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the mediating roles of fear of missing out and problematic smartphone use in the relationship between these two variables in a Chinese context. Four hundred and sixty-five undergraduates participated in this study by completing measures of support received through online social networking sites, fear of missing out, problematic smartphone use, and addiction to Chinese social media. The results showed that fear of missing out and problematic smartphone use mediated the relationship between support through online social networking sites and addiction to such sites, both in series and in parallel. This might be among the first studies to elucidate the mechanism underlying the development of social media addiction from the perspective of online support. Although the crosssectional design employed has several limitations, these findings offer a potential avenue of research in the development of strategies for the prevention of addiction to social networking sites and interventions for treating this affliction. Keywords Social networking sites . Social networking sites addiction . FOMO . Problematic smartphone use
Introduction Addiction to Social Networking Sites and Online Social Support Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Wechat allow individuals to create public or semi-public profiles, upload pictures, broadcast significant personal events, browse others’ personal data, and exchange information on shared interests, and are very popular among emerging young adults, especially undergraduate students, around the world (Ellison et al. 2007; Ellison 2007). According to the latest official report released by * Jianling Ma [email protected] Chang Liu [email protected] 1
Yangtze Normal University, JuXian Road, FuLing District, Chongqing 408100, China
2
Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongwen Road, Nan’ an District, Chongqing 400065, China
the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), there are almost 0.802 billion netizens in China, accounting for one fifth of the global total (CNNIC 2018). Of these, 27.9% are aged 20–29 years, and this group includes many college students. The top three most popular social media platforms used by them are Wechat (used by 86.9%), QQ (64.7%), and Sina Weibo (42.1%) (CNNIC 2018). Wechat is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment application. It was first released in 2011; by 2018, it was one of the world’s largest standalone mobile applications by number of monthly active users (over 1 billion).
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