Research On The Influence Mechanism Of College Students’ Social Media Addiction On Cyberbullying

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the current situation of social media use and the prevalence of cyberbullying among college students in China;to investigate the impact of social media addiction on college student’s cyberbullying and the relationship between the factors such as online self-disclosure,perceived anonymity and cyberbullying;to identify the influence mechanism of social media addiction on cyberbullying.Based on this,some suggestions are going to be given for the construction of college students’ cyberbullying prevention and intervention projects.Methods: The measurement tool used in this study was adjusted based on the modification of the reliability-validated scales in previous studies.The data came from an online questionnaire survey.A snowball-like sample method was used to investigate the situation of college students’ social media usage.The survey objects were college students.A total of 346 samples were valid(74.57%).Data analysis methods included descriptive analysis,independent sample T-test,analysis of variance,correlation analysis and regression analysis.Results: Based on the comprehensive theory of problem behavior and general aggression model,the influence mechanism of social media addiction on cyberbullying was proposed.The empirical results showed that the average social media addiction of the respondents in this study was 2.647,the average cyberbullying was 1.478,and 26.59% of the surveyed college students reported that they had ever experienced cyberbullying more than once.College students’ social media addiction had a significant effect on cyberbullying(β=0.325,p<0.001).The college students who lack the time management of social media use and some problems on life and study,were more likely to cyberbullying others.Selfdisclosure played a partial mediating role of social media addiction on cyberbullying in this study,it’s indirect effect size was 0.114.The perceived anonymity moderated the relationship between social media addiction and cyberbullying(β= 0.104,p < 0.001).Conclusions: College students use social media more frequently.Some college students said that they had experienced one or more types of cyberbullying to against others more than once.Therefore,it is necessary to carry out further prevention and intervention measures to protect the health and development of college students.College students should have a rational understanding of network social activities,use social media in moderation and avoid letting social media affect their studies and health.Colleges and universities should pay more attention to cyberbullying and carry out effective intervention programs.Social media platforms should build a safe and harmonious network environment and keep the management of users’ real-name registration,so as to prevent,reduce and avoid the occurrence of cyberbullying.