Upward Social Comparison And Social Network Addiction In College Students: The Chain Mediating Role Of Alienation And Fear Of Missing Out

Under the background of highly developed Internet information technology,social network greatly expands and facilitates people’s social activities.However,excessive use of social networks will not only bring a series of negative effects to individuals,but also cause a variety of potential social problems.College students are active users of social networks.Due to their weak executive control and poor emotional regulation ability,they are easy to overuse social networks,resulting in certain dependent behaviors,which affect their normal study and life and bring serious adverse effects on their physical and mental health.Studies have shown that upward social comparison is one of the important risk factors for social network addiction,which will have a negative impact on the psychological and physical health of college students.Therefore,this study aims to explore the relationship between upward social comparison and social network addiction among college students.On the basis of previous studies,alienation and fear of missing are introduced to explore the mechanism of action between the two variables on upward social comparison and social network addiction,so as to provide theoretical basis for further research and improvement of college students’ mental health.In this study,questionnaires were used to measure the upward social Comparison Scale,Chinese Social network Addiction Scale,alienation scale for college students and fear of Missing scale were distributed to two universities in S province and L province,and 832 valid data were finally collected.SPSS25.0 software was used to input all the data and psychological statistical analysis was conducted.AMOS26.0 software was used to verify the chain mediating effect of alienation and fear of missing.The following conclusions are drawn:(1)There are significant differences in demographic variables of social network addiction,such as gender,whether they are the only child or not,and place of origin;(2)Upward social comparison can positively predict college students’ social network addiction;(3)Alienation partially mediates the relationship between upward social comparison and social network addiction;(4)Miss fear plays a partial mediating role between upward social comparison and social network addiction;(5)Alienation and fear of missing out play a chain mediating role between upward social comparison and social network addiction of college students.Based on the above conclusions,this study puts forward the following educational suggestions:(1)to help college students correct their own unreasonable cognition and reduce the occurrence of upward social comparative psychology and behavior;(2)Multiparty education to help college students relieve social network addiction;(3)Strive to create a good education environment for college students,reduce their sense of alienation,increase the sense of belonging and self-confidence of college students;(4)College students should pay attention to the improvement of personal psychological quality,enhance self-awareness and exploration,reduce their fear of missing,let their emotions and bodies get rid of the constraints of instrumentalization,and calmly explore life in a more specific and real world.