How social media usage affects psychological and subjective well-being: testing a moderated mediation model

Abstract

Background A growing body of literature demonstrates that social media usage has witnessed a rapid increase in higher education and is almost ubiquitous among young people. The underlying mechanisms as to how social media usage by university students affects their well-being are unclear. Moreover, current research has produced conflicting evidence concerning the potential effects of social media on individuals' overall well-being with some reporting negative outcomes while others revealing beneficial results. Methods To address the research gap, the present research made an attempt to investigate the crucial role of social media in affecting students’ psychological (PWB) and subjective well-being (SWB) by testing the mediating role of self-esteem and online social support and the moderation effect of cyberbullying. The data in the study were obtained from a sample of 1,004 college students (483 females and 521 males, Mage = 23.78, SD = 4.06) enrolled at 135 Chinese universities. AMOS 26.0 and SPSS 26.0 as well as the Process macro were utilized for analyzing data and testing the moderated mediation model. Results Findings revealed that social media usage by university students was positively associated with their PWB and SWB through self-esteem and online social support, and cyberbullying played a moderating role in the first phase of the mediation process such that the indirect associations were weak with cyberbullying reaching high levels. Conclusion These findings highlight the importance of discerning the mechanisms moderating the mediated paths linking social media usage by young adults to their PWB and SWB. The results also underline the importance of implementing measures and interventions to alleviate the detrimental impacts of cyberbullying on young adults’ PWB and SWB.

Research on the influencing factors of subjective well-being of Chinese college students based on panel model

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The hidden costs of emotional labor on withdrawal behavior: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion, and the moderating effect of mindfulness

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The Role of Social Media on Subjective Well-Being of Adolescents: a Systematic Literature Review

“…According to the findings of Lamash (2023), there is a significant correlation between well-being and social interaction skills and social media use. This is reinforced by research by Zhang et al, (2023), which states that social media has a positive effect on psychological well-being (PWB) and subjective happiness (subjective well-being). Chai et al (2019) suggested that the use of social networking sites (SNS) has a positive direct effect on adolescents' subjective well-being.…”

“…This scoping review included ten articles, all of which were empirical studies. This research was conducted in different countries, namely Taiwan (Hsu et al, 2020); (Lai et al, 2018), Turkey (Koç & Turan, 2020), USA and Canada (Wirtz et al, 2020), China (Chai et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2023), Kazakhstan (Mahmood et al, 2023), Australia (Jarman et al, 2021), Croatia (Keresteš & Štulhofer., 2019), Netherlands (Du et al, 2021). The subjects of these studies were adolescents with the status of high school and university students.…”