The Relationship Between Social Media Use And Fear Of Missing Out In College Students:The Mediating Role And Intervention Of Interpersonal Stress

In today’s society,social media has become an important tool for interpersonal communication and interaction.The inappropriate use of social media by college students,the main users of social media,gradually reflects problems such as the development of miss-anxiety,i.e.,anxiety that arises from the fear of missing out on interesting and valuable content from others.However,as society evolves new and complex social demands require college students to develop sophisticated social skills,and these challenges may generate interpersonal stress in many areas of life.Few current studies have examined the relationship between interpersonal stress and social media use and missed anxiety,but studies have found a correlation between stress and social media use and missed anxiety.Therefore,the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between mismatch anxiety,social media use,and interpersonal stress,and in addition,to verify the mediating role of interpersonal stress again through whether the implementation of focal resolution group counseling affects college students’ levels of interpersonal stress in order to mitigate the negative effects of mismatch anxiety on individuals.Study 1 investigated the relationship between interpersonal stress,social media use,and loss anxiety,and the mediating role of interpersonal stress between the two,primarily through a questionnaire method,and through statistical analysis of data from 469 college students.Study 2 investigated whether focal resolution group counseling had an intervention effect on interpersonal stress among college students.26 college students were recruited and randomly divided into experimental and control groups(13 in each group),and pre-test,post-test and follow-up experiments were conducted for the experimental and control groups.During the pre-test and post-test periods,the experimental group was given a weekly 2-hour focus group intervention for 6 weeks,while the control group was not given any intervention.At the same time,a follow-up test was administered to all subjects who had participated in the group tutorial 1 month after the end of the group tutorial,respectively.Study 3conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 subjects in the experimental group at the end of 6 consecutive weeks of group counseling through the interview method to understand the changes in the experimental subjects’ experiences and missed anxiety during the continuous interpersonal stress group counseling,and to provide a more explicit and in-depth interpretation of the results of Study 2.The results showed that(1)no significant differences existed between college students’ social media use in terms of gender and birth origin,and significant differences existed in terms of education and whether they were only students;(2)no significant differences existed between college students’ interpersonal stress and wrongdoing anxiety in terms of gender,whether they were only students and birth origin,and significant differences existed in terms of education;(3)significant positive correlations existed between college students’ interpersonal stress and social media use and wrongdoing anxiety.(4)Interpersonal stress partially mediated the relationship between social media use and loss anxiety;(5)Focused solution group counseling was effective in improving interpersonal stress among college students,and the intervention effect was sustained at the follow-up test after 1 month;(6)Focused solution group counseling contributed to the reduction of loss anxiety through the intervention of interpersonal stress.In summary,interpersonal stress partially mediates the relationship between social media use and wrongdoing anxiety,and focal resolution group counseling can effectively improve interpersonal stress and affect wrongdoing anxiety levels among college students.This study provides a theoretical basis for individual wrongdoing anxiety and its related maladaptive behaviors and psychological problems,and at the same time,the effective manipulation resulted in a significant reduction of interpersonal stress and some improvement of wrongdoing anxiety among the subjects.The specific changes and influencing factors of wrongdoing anxiety were explored at a qualitative micro level,and more maladaptive social adjustment behaviors and psychological problems could be explained by interpersonal stress and social media use among college students in the future.