Influence of WeChat on sleep quality among undergraduates in Chongqing, China: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious studies showed that social media is associated with sleep quality. WeChat (a native social media in China) is very popular in China, especially among the youth. In the second quarter of 2016, Tencent’s WeChat had 806 million monthly active users. The study sought to identify the influence of WeChat on the sleep quality among undergraduate students.MethodsA cross-sectional survey adopted a multi-stage stratified sampling survey to investigate undergraduates in Chongqing, China. Data were collected on 1979 eligible adults, aged 20.27 (SD: 1.26) years old, using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to measure sleep quality.ResultsRespondents aged 20.27 ± 1.26 years included 535 (27.0%) males, and 1311 (66.3%) reported as having poor sleep quality. Of the 1979 participants, 1320 (66.70%) were WeChat users. In multivariable analyses, gender, grade, nationality, living costs, the student leader, the only child, type of university, WeChat usage was associated with domains of PSQI among undergraduates (p < 0.05 for all). Compared with non-users, WeChat users had a lower score of subjective quality of sleep, sleep latency, use of sleeping medication, daytime dysfunction, and global PSQI score (p < 0.05 for all).ConclusionsWeChat users may have better sleep quality than non-WeChat users among undergraduates. To determine causal relationships, further longitudinal studies will be required to test for the association between WeChat users and sleep quality. This study may also provide some implications for health promotion on sleep quality of undergraduate students.

Prevalence of sleep disturbances in Chinese university students: a comprehensive meta‐analysis

“…The prevalences of sleep disturbances in the past 1–2 weeks, past month and past year were 15.7, 23.9 and 1.9%, respectively. Only one study reported sleep disturbance in the past year (Xu et al ., ). There was a significant difference in prevalence of sleep disturbances between studies using different PSQI cut‐off values ( Q = 49.6, P < 0.001).…”

The Multipurpose Application WeChat: A Review on Recent Research

“…In contrast, there have been a growing number of studies showing that smartphone use disorder/smartphone addiction (SA) 1 might be associated with poorer sleep quality, because these users stick around their smartphones too long, also in the evening or at night (Van den Bulck, 2003; Demirci et al, 2015). Interestingly, a new study by Xu et al (2016) observed that WeChat users have better sleep quality compared with non-users. The authors explained the initial contradictory findings in the context of stress relieving properties of WeChat [see also above the work by Mao (2014)].…”

Social Media Use, Social Media Stress, and Sleep: Examining Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Relationships in Adolescents

“…Up to now, studies that directly examined the relationship between SM use and sleep have yielded mixed results (e.g., Garett, Liu, & Young, 2016;Levenson, Shensa, Sidani, Colditz, & Primack, 2016;Xu et al, 2016). Whereas one study showed that SM frequency was related to more sleep disturbances, including more difficulty falling asleep and lower sleep quality (Levenson et al, 2016), other studies showed limited or no support for a negative relationship between SM use and sleep (Garett et al, 2016;Tavernier & Willoughby, 2014;Xu et al, 2016).…”

“…Whereas one study showed that SM frequency was related to more sleep disturbances, including more difficulty falling asleep and lower sleep quality (Levenson et al, 2016), other studies showed limited or no support for a negative relationship between SM use and sleep (Garett et al, 2016;Tavernier & Willoughby, 2014;Xu et al, 2016).…”