The Impact of Social Network Site Addiction on Depression in Chinese Medical Students: A Serial Multiple Mediator Model Involving Loneliness and Unmet Interpersonal Needs

Ruijie Gong, Yinghuan Zhang, Rusi Long, Rui Zhu, Sicong Li, Xinyi Liu, Suping Wang and Yong Cai
Additional contact information
Ruijie Gong: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Yinghuan Zhang: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Rusi Long: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Rui Zhu: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Sicong Li: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Xinyi Liu: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Suping Wang: Department of Discipline Planning, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
Yong Cai: School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-8

Abstract: The use of social network sites (SNSs) is inevitable in daily life. Everyone is likely to be addicted to SNSs, especially medical students. This study is aimed to assess the degree of SNS addiction and its relation to psychosocial factors such as depression, loneliness and unmet interpersonal needs among Chinese medical students. The cross-section survey was conducted from March to May in 2018 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Of the total 1067 participants, 33.18% had an SNS addiction, 87.7% of the participants used SNSs every day during last month and 53.42% of the participants used SNSs for at least an hour per day during the last week. SNS addiction is positively related with depression both directly and indirectly. The mediating roles of loneliness and unmet interpersonal needs on the relationship between SNS addiction and depression are significant. For the well-being of medical students, efforts should be taken to prevent them from becoming addicted to SNSs.

Keywords: social network sites; SNS addiction; depression; loneliness; interpersonal needs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8614/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8614/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8614-:d:614737

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().