A Study Of The Influence Of Social Media Use On The Anxiety Of The Small Town Youth

China is in the transition period from traditional society to modern society,in addition to the level of economic development,the state of social mentality is also an important indicator to measure the degree of modernization of the country.As one of the explicit characteristics of social development,social mentality is of great significance to social prosperity and political stability.However,with the rapid development of the socialist market economy and the great transformation of the pattern of social interests,deep-seated institutional problems and the phenomenon of solidification of interests have further emerged,and anxiety has become a universal identity of modern social development.The rapid rise of social media,represented by the Little Red Book,has shaped the way individuals receive and recognize information,intervening more and more deeply into daily life,and subtly affecting the audience’s cognition,emotions,concepts and psychological states.As an important group and key force in building a new urbanization and promoting the integration of urban and rural development,it is particularly critical for small-town youth to understand the impact of social media use on their anxiety mentality.Based on the perspective of social comparison theory and acculturation theory,this essay uses quantitative and qualitative ways to empirically analyze the data of 372 questionnaires and conduct in-depth interviews with 15 young people in small towns.This paper focuses on the relationship between the use of the Little Red Book and the formation of anxiety feelings among young people in small towns,the influence of the use of the Little Red Book on the formation of anxiety feelings of young people in small towns,and the influence of the use of the Little Red Book on the formation of social anxiety feelings of young people in small towns.The following conclusions are drawn from the cross-analysis of the intensity of the use of the Little Red Book by young people in small towns,the tendency of social comparison and the sense of anxiety of subjects First,the intensity of the use of the Little Red Book for Small Town Youth has a positive influence on the subject’s anxiety.The longer the service life and the higher the frequency of use,the stronger the anxiety of the subject.Second,the intensity of the use of the Little Red Book by small-town youth has a positive influence relationship with the social comparison tendency.The longer and more frequent users of the Little Red Book,the higher the social comparison tendency.Third,the social tendency of small-town youth to have a positive influence relationship with the anxiety of the subject.The higher the frequency of social comparison tendencies of small-town youth,the stronger the sense of anxiety of the subject;Moreover,whether it is an upward social comparison,a parallel social comparison or a downward social comparison,the anxiety of small-town youth will increase.Combined with in-depth interviews,it was found that social media’s desire for things through agenda setting has spawned the material anxiety of small-town youth;Creating media class labels that lack identity reinforces the identity anxiety of small-town youth;Creating a media utopia that in turn uses the pressure of eulogism to spread the peer anxieties of small-town youth;The constructed single aesthetic field and the symbolized beauty of the discourse form derive the facial anxiety of small-town youth.From the perspective of social anxiety,research has concluded that social media mainly affects the formation of anxiety from the following aspects.First,the shaping power of the media boosts the connotation effect of consumer culture,and consumerism domesticates the conceptual consciousness of small-town youth;Second,algorithmic technology uses kidnapping to make households create anxiety,users spread anxiety,and users construct anxiety from the mirror image to be ubiquitous and timely,and the anxiety transmission chain is extended indefinitely;Third,the marketing strategy and traffic economy of the platform community have derived the illusion of media survivor deviation,which strengthens the perception of social anxiety among small-town youth.The innovation points of this article are mainly the following three points.First,to understand small-town youth from a psychological point of view,enriching the research perspective of small-town youth-related research;Second,the innovative use of weak relationship social media as an incision as a supplement to the study of social comparison and anxiety of young people on strong relationship social platforms;Third,in the study of anxiety caused by social media use,an innovative fusion of individual anxiety as a subjective experience and social anxiety as a broad consensus is more comprehensively discussed.