Social Media Usage Intensity And Social Media Fatigue:Mediating Effect Of Upward Social Comparison

Although social media constantly improve functions and services to attract social media users,at the same time,the gradual increase of social media fatigue is leading to an increasing number of users' activity loss,access per capita,residence time reduction or even termination.Facing the increasingly obvious phenomenon of social media fatigue,most of the previous researches have explored the antecedents and effects of social media fatigue from external perspectives such as technology usage and information overload.However,from the perspective of internal psychology,the investigation of the relationship between psychological factors and social media fatigue has not been fully studied.The research focuses on the influence of social psychology on the negative behaviors of social media users.From the perspective of internal psychology,the research takes the upward social comparison into consideration and constructs the mediation effect model between the social media usage intensity and social media fatigue.By reviewing the research status of fatigue in the fields of psychology,histology,and health medicine,the research identifies the concepts,dimensions,and measurement indicators of social media fatigue.By using empirical research method,we conducted an online survey on 611 college students with WeChat experience through the social media usage intensity scale,the upward social comparison scale and the social media fatigue scale.SPSS was used to process the data,the reliability and validity test,and correlation analysis.The AMOS built-in Bootstrap method was used to test the mediating effect in the structural equation model.Finally,The results of the research confirm the hypothesis proposed in this study.The study found that the individual social media usage intensity has a positive prediction effect on social media fatigue;social media usage intensity has a positive prediction on upward social comparison;upward social comparison has a positive predictive effect on social media fatigue;upward social comparison plays an part mediation role between social media usage intensity and social media fatigue.In addition,there are significant differences in the degree of social media fatigue from different ages,disciplines,education levels and the beginning of the use of WeChat time.The purpose of the research is to build a mediation channel between social media use and social media fatigue.It is found that psychological factors have a direct effect on social media fatigue,which enriches the existing research and further expands and deepens the investigation of the antecedent variables of social media fatigue.