The Relationship Between Motivation For Social Media Use And Problematic Use: A Moderated Chain Mediator

With the coverage of smart phones and mobile communication,various mobile social media applications are playing an increasingly important role in people’s lives,and they all meet the social and psychological needs of users through various kinds of functions.However,it is worth noting that while users gain satisfaction in this process,some users have problematic use of them.The problem of problematic or excessive use of Internet applications has been around for a long time,and studies have revealed that usage motivations such as entertainment and relaxation,social interaction,information seeking,and escapism are an important factor influencing problematic social media use.Motivations can affect problematic social media use not only directly,but also indirectly through other variables.In this regard,studies have shown that negative coping styles and Fo MO(fear of missing out)may play an important role.In this regard,in order to investigate more clearly the mechanisms underlying the occurrence of problematic social media use behaviors and to explore in depth the possible influential pathways involved.In this study,we introduced two mediating variables,negative coping style and Fo MO,and constructed a chain mediation model to investigate the influence of motivation on problematic social media use.In addition,to explore the stabilizing influence exerted by personality in this process,this study also examined the moderating role of neuroticism in this process.This study used the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Problematic Mobile Social Media Use,the Use of Motivation to Scale,the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire,the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory Brief Version,and the Fear of Missing Out scale to survey 682 college students in school.The results of the study showed that:(1)There were no significant differences in the demographic variables of motivation to use,Fo MO and problematic social media use;negative coping styles differed significantly by gender and type of profession.(2)There was a significant positive correlation between motivation to use,negative coping style,Fo MO,and problematic social media use.Neuroticism was not significantly correlated with overall motivation to use,but was significantly negatively correlated with information motivation and positively correlated with avoidance motivation in motivation to use.(3)Negative coping style mediated the relationship between use motivation and problematic social media use;Fo MO mediated the relationship between use motivation and problematic social media use;and negative coping style and Fo MO mediated the relationship between use motivation and problematic social media use in a chain.(4)There was a moderating effect of neuroticism.In the high neuroticism condition,motivation to use was a more significant predictor of problematic social media use;in the low neuroticism condition,negative coping style was a more significant predictor of problematic social media use and Fo MO was a more significant predictor of problematic social media use.(5)Specifically in the mediation model,the independent mediation effect of negative coping style,and Fo MO was stronger in the low neuroticism condition;the chain mediation effect of negative coping style and Fo MO was stronger.This suggests that the moderating effect of neuroticism was significant not only in the two independent mediating model of use motivation → negative coping style →problematic use,use motivation → Fo MO → problematic use,but also in the chain mediating model of use motivation → negative coping style → Fo MO →problematic use.