The Relationship Between College Students Social Networking Sites Use And Mobile Phone Addiction:a Moderate Mediation Model

For college students,visiting social networking sites via mobile phone has become an important part of their daily life.Mobile phone addiction may affect the college students’ physical and mental health,Such as distracting college students’ attention,causing sleep disorders and physical discomfort,it will also give college students a sense of social isolation.However,previous researches on focused on the correlation between the use of social network and mobile phone addiction.Based on the results of previous researches,in this research,we will discuss the internal mechanism of the use of social network by college students and mobile phone addiction.Individuals use the social networking sites to maintain their interpersonal relationship,so the use of social networking sites can satisfy the individual’s requirement for sense of belonging.When the individual’s requirement for sense of belonging is not satisfied,the fear of missing out will be generated.In the meantime,the fear of missing out is also an important predictive factor of mobile phone addiction,but the interrelation mechanism among these three aspects is still unclear.Therefore,in this research,we investigate the relation among the three aspects of the use of social networking sites,fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction.Self-esteem is an important factor that affects psychology and social adaptation,Individuals with low self-esteem prefer indirect interpersonal relationship,they tend to use mobile phone to escape from reality,and they may also use the social networking sites to avoid the difficulty for face to face communication.In the meantime,upward social comparison might be generated during use of social networking sites,and the individuals with low self-esteem might generate more negative emotions after conducting social comparison,while the fear of missing out originates from negative emotions.Therefore,the individuals with low self-esteem may generate more fear of missing out during their use of social network.Among previous researches on the relation among the use of social network,the fear of missing out,self-esteem and mobile phone addiction,very few investigated the role of performance in the relation among three aspects.Therefore,in our research,we investigate the regulatory role of self-esteem during the use of social networking sitesand the relation among the fear of missing out,the use of social networking sites and mobile phone addiction.In this study,427 college students in a university were taken as subjects.The questionnaire was used to measure mobile phone addiction index(MPAI),the multidimensional scale of facebook use(MSFU),the user’s fear of missing out(FOMO)scale in the mobile social media environment scale,self-esteem scale(SES).The results showed that:(1)The use of social networking sites can be used to make forward prediction of the fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction,and the fear of missing out can be used to make forward prediction of mobile phone addiction;(2)It plays the role of intermediation in the relation between the use of social networking sites and mobile phone addiction;(3)Self-esteem can regulate the influence of the use of social networking sites on the fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction.Conclusions:(1)The use of social networking sites has a strong predictive effect on college students’ mobile phone addiction.(2)The use of social networking sites will affect mobile phone addiction through the fear of missing out.(3)Individuals with low self-esteem would use social network more,which will increase their level of fear of missing out and will cause their mobile phone addiction.Therefore,by preventing or intervening in the college students’ mobile phone addiction,it can help improve their self-esteem.