The Relationship Of The Passive Use Of Social Network And Depression:Multiple Mediationg Effect Of Upward Social Comparison An Envy

Social networking sites have become an important tool and platform for interpersonal communication in the Internet age.The popularity of social networking sites make its impact on individuals to get the attention of many researchers,but with the deepening of the study,the researchers use behavior consciously classification integration of social networking sites,social networking websites use mainly can be divided into two kinds:active use and passive use.In recent years,there is also some research about how passive use of the social network site influenced the emotion or life satisfaction of people.However,there are few studies to explore the effects of passive use to peoples' life satisfactions.Focus on to find how passive use of the social network site to influence the depression may helps to distinguish between different social networking sites use behavior influence on depression.From the perspective of passive use of the social network site,upward social comparison,envy and depression,this paper attempts to explore the specific mechanism of the passive use of the social network site of college students on depression,so as to provide theoretical guidance and empirical evidence for alleviating the depression of college students.In this study,1003 college students who has a social networking site,such as QQ space or We Chat,were assessed using the passive use of the social network site scale and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale,upward social comparison scale and envy scale.The students are from three universities in Wuhan and Xi'an.On the basis of analysis the circumstances and characteristics of passive use of social network site,upward social comparison,envy and depression,the relationship between the above variables is discussed in depth.The multiple mediation model influencing depression focuses on the mediating role of upward social comparison and envy.This study draws the following conclusions:(1)There were significant gender differences in passive use of the social network site,and girls scored significantly higher on passive use of the social network site than boys.(2)There were significant differences in the depression in the grade,and the scores of freshmen in positive emotions were significantly lower than those of sophomores and juniors.(3)There was a significant positive correlation between the use of passive social networking sites and upward social comparison;The upward social comparison can significantly predict envy and depression;Envy was positively correlated with depression;(4)Multiple mediation modeling indicated passive use of social network site did not directly affect depression,but indirectly affected depression through two path ways:firstly,passive use of social network site could affect depression through multiple mediating role of upward social comparison and self-envy,secondly,through the mediating effect of envy.In conclusion,this study result shows that the passive social networking websites use cannot be directly positively predict depression level,are likely to exist shading effect.When we took the upward social comparison and envy into consideration,we find that individuals used social network more in the passive way,individuals may easily experienced upward comparison and feel envy,further influence the individual levels of depression.The conclusion suggests that college students should to use social network sites more in active ways,which can reduce the upward social comparison and the emotional experience of envy,to avoid a depression.