The Influence of Social Media Use Intensity, Self-Esteem and Stress
on College Students’ Academic Performance
Lei Zhao
1
and Zehui Yao
2
1
Wendian College, Anhui University, Hefei, China
2
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University, Hefei, China
Keywords: Use Intensity, Self-Esteem, Stress, Academic Performance.
Abstract: If not properly used, social media can cause some negative effects on college students' life, such as the
decline of academic performance. After reviewing relevant literature, we developed a research model and
investigated the association among use intensity, self-esteem, stress and academic performance of college
students. Using data from a survey of 378 respondents, we completed an empirical study. From the analysis
results, we found that both use intensity and stress are negatively associated with academic performance,
while self-esteem mainly indirectly and positively affects academic performance through the mediating
effect of use intensity. This study deepens the knowledge and understanding of issues related to social media
use, and can provide a reference for educators to implement intervention measures.
1 INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, social media has been widely used in
college students’ education, entertainment, social
interaction and other aspects. Studies involving the
effects of social media use on college students'
academic performance have not reached a unanimous
conclusion. Several studies argue that social media is
a powerful tool to help college students improve their
learning efficiency (Al-Yafi et al., 2018), while others
point out that social media can distract college
students from learning task (Zhao, 2021). Thus, in
order to further explore the relationship between
them, more research is necessary.
In terms of influencing factors of social media
use and academic performance, some studies point
out that self-esteem and stress are important factors
that cannot be ignored. If college students have high
levels of self-esteem, they are generally able to
control the time they spend on social media, are less
likely to develop symptoms of addiction, and also
obtain better academic performance (Zhao, 2021; Li
et al., 2018). When college students are facing
greater stress, they may fail to achieve good results
in the exam, and may also use social media to relieve
their stress or regulate their emotion (Hoffner & Lee,
2015). However, existing studies have mainly
analyzed the association among self-esteem, stress,
social media use and academic performance
separately, which cannot provide a complete and
clear picture of the complex association among them.
To address this research gap, a research model was
developed to comprehensively demonstrate the
network of pathways that link social media use,
self-esteem, stress, and academic performance.
2 HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
2.1 Use Intensity and Academic
Performance
Previous studies have examined the influence of
college students' social media use on their academic
performance, but have not reached consistent
conclusions (Al-Yafi et al., 2018). Some researchers
point out that the use of social media significantly
affects college students' academic performance,
suggesting that social media should be used to
collect learning information (Ainin er al., 2015). On
the contrary, researches show that we should not
underestimate the negative impact of college
students' social media use on their academic
performance. Overuse can distract college students’
attention, reduce their learning efficiency, and
further worsen their academic performance (Shi et
al., 2020). In other words, with the increasing use
intensity of social media, college students' academic
performance may be negatively affected (Zhao, 2021;
Masood et al., 2020). To sum up, social media use
Zhao, L. and Yao, Z.
The Influence of Social Media Use Intensity, Self-Esteem and Stress on College Studentsâ
˘
A
´
Z Academic Performance.
DOI: 10.5220/0012055600003612
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing (ISAIC 2022), pages 801-806
ISBN: 978-989-758-622-4; ISSN: 2975-9463
Copyright
c
2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
801
intensity may have negative consequences on college
students’ academic performance without being
explicitly used for academic purposes. Based on this,
the hypothesis is put forward:
H1: Social media use intensity negatively
affects academic performance of college students.
2.2 Self-Esteem and Use Intensity,
Academic Performance
According to the social compensation hypothesis
(Steinfield et al., 2008), users with low self-esteem
feel more comfortable online than in an offline
environment and prefer to make friends on social
media. College students with low self-esteem logged
on to social media more often, spent more time and
were more likely to experience symptoms of
addiction than those with high self-esteem (Busalim
et al., 2019; Zhao, 2021). In a recent study, Saiphoo
et al. (2022) confirmed that self-esteem significantly
negatively affects the time users spend on social
media, indicating that lower self-esteem could lead
to higher level of use intensity.
The hypothesis of “the rich are richer” used by
social media indicates that users with higher
self-esteem are more incline to use social media in a
positive way, and they can benefit more from social
media use (Shchebetenko, 2019), such as higher
subjective well-being and better academic
performance. The importance of high self-esteem is
that it provides college students with some
protection from negative experiences such as
setbacks (Zeigler et al., 2021). Studies have also
pointed out that college students with high
self-esteem often have clearer learning goals and
higher learning motivation, and they can often
achieve better academic performance (Li et al.,
2018). Therefore, the following two hypotheses are
proposed:
H2: Self-esteem negatively affects social media
use intensity of college students.
H3: Self-esteem positively affects academic
performance of college students.
2.3 Stress and Use Intensity, Academic
Performance
College students will feel stressed if they are placed
in an environment that demands more than they can
handle and causes them to be unable to cope (Zhao,
2021). When young people are in stressful situations,
they tend to participate more in social media
activities to manage emotions, get support or escape
from reality (Brailovskaia et al., 2019). Wolfers et al.
(2021) pointed out that at a specific time-point, more
stress than usual is related to further social media use
than usual.
Stress negatively affects college students'
cognitive ability and learning efficiency, thus
worsening their academic performance (Sandra et al.,
2013). In addition, students facing greater stress are
usually unable to show what they have learned in the
exam, so that they cannot achieve better academic
performance (Juana et al., 2021). Following these
studies, two hypotheses are put forward:
H4: Stress positively affects social media use
intensity of college students.
H5: Stress negatively affects academic
performance of college students.
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Model
A research model was constructed (Figure1).
Figure 1: Research model.
3.2 Measures
3.2.1 Use Intensity
This study used the Social Media Use Intensity
Measurement Scale (Orosz et al., 2016), which
contains 13 measurement items. The Cronbach's α is
0.869.
3.2.2 Self-Esteem
In this study, Rosenberg's (1965) Self-Esteem
Measurement Scale was used, with 10 measurement
items. The Cronbach's α is 0.722.
3.2.3 Stress
In order to assess the stress situation of college
students, this study used the Stress Scale (Lovibond
and Lovibond, 1995), which has 7 measurement
items. The Cronbach's α is 0.821.
ISAIC 2022 - International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing
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3.2.4 Academic Performance
Three measurement items (Nayak, 2018) were used
to measure the academic performance of college
student. The Cronbach's α is 0.853.
3.3 Data Collection
In November 2021, we conducted a questionnaire
survey in a comprehensive university with random
sampling method, and obtained 378 valid
questionnaires. Table 1 shows the characteristics of
valid samples.
Table 1: Sample Demographics (N=378).
Cate
g
or
y
Number
(
%
)
Gende
r
Male 161
(
42.6%
)
Female 217(57.4%)
A
g
e
17-25 years 378(100%)
Education level
Undergraduate 245(64.8%)
Post
g
raduate 133
(
35.2%
)
4 ANALYSIS
4.1 Measurement Model Assessment
The test results of reliability and validity are shown
in Table 2. The Cronbach's α and CR of all variables
exceed 0.7, suggesting that the internal consistency
and convergent validity of this measurement model
are relatively good. In addition, the AVE square root
(cells in bold) of each variable is larger than the
correlation coefficient between them, indicating that
the measurement model has good discriminant
validity.
Table 2: Correlations and AVE.
Cronbach’s
α
CR AVE UI SE ST AP
Use intensity (UI) 0.869 0.886 0.520 0.721
Self-esteem (SE) 0.722 0.710 0.509 -0.124 0.713
Stress (ST) 0.821 0.859 0.532 0.207 -0.448 0.729
Academic performance (AP) 0.853 0.903 0.757 -0.492 0.291 -0.345 0.870
4.2 Structural Model Testing
AMOS24.0 software was used to test the structural
model. The specific values of relevant indicators are:
χ
2
/df ratio=2.132, RMSEA=0.038, RMR=0.021,
CFI=0.961, AGFI=0.923, IFI=0.941, and TLI=0.928.
The results reveal that this is an acceptable model fit,
and the collected data are consistent with the
hypothetical model. We continue to calculate the
path coefficients, and Table 3 shows the analysis
results. From this we know that H1, H2, H4 and H5
are supported, while H3 is not.
Table 3: The SEM analysis results of hypotheses testing.
β p-value SEM result
H1：Use intensity→Academic performance -0.458
***
0.000 Supported
H2：Self-esteem→Use intensity -0.194
*
0.010 Supported
H3：Self-esteem→Academic performance 0.027 0.639 Not supported
H4：Stress→Use intensity 0.182
**
0.005 Supported
H5：Stress→Academic performance -0.242
***
0.000 Supported
The Influence of Social Media Use Intensity, Self-Esteem and Stress on College Studentsâ
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Z Academic Performance
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4.3 Indirect Effect Analysis
To assess the indirect effect, we used the bootstrap
analysis. According to the data in Table 4, we found
that 95% CI of the two indirect paths did not include
zero, which indicated that self-esteem and stress
have significant indirect effects on academic
performance through the mediating effect of use
intensity.
Table 4: Results of indirect effect testing.
β t-value p-value 95% CI Results
LL UL
Self-esteem →Use intensity → Academic
performance
0.089
*
2.510 0.012 0.031 0.165 Supported
Stress →Use intensity → Academic
performance
-0.083
**
2.730 0.006 -0.146 -0.027 Supported
5 DISCUSSION
In contrast to existing studies, we simultaneously
explored the association among self-esteem, stress,
social media use, and academic performance in one
study. In that sense, this is a novel study that can
more clearly describe the relationship between these
variables. Our results reveal some important
findings.
In this study, use intensity negatively affects
academic performance, which has been validated in
SEM analysis results. The time of the day is fixed,
and spending a lot of time on social media means
that college students do not have enough time to
spend on study, which leads to the failure to
complete the study task on time (Busalim et al.,
2019). In other words, the higher the intensity of
college students' social media use, the worse their
academic performance.
Self-esteem negatively affects use intensity.
College students with low self-esteem often replace
offline interpersonal communication with online
socializing, so they are more inclined to overuse
social media (Mehdizadeh, 2010). The results of
some studies suggest that self-esteem can directly
affect academic performance (Li et al., 2018), but
this is not entirely applicable to Chinese college
students in our study. However, considering the
indirect effect, the results indicate that self-esteem
positively affects academic performance through the
mediating effect of social media use intensity.
College students with high self-esteem can use social
media in a reasonable way and have a low level of
use intensity (Jang et al., 2018), while students with
low use intensity can often achieve good academic
performance (Shi et al., 2020). This is to say, college
students with high self-esteem are more likely to
achieve good academic performance.
In our study, stress positively affects use intensity
and negatively affects academic performance of
college students, suggesting that the greater the stress
perceived by college student users, the higher their
use intensity, and the more likely their academic
performance will deteriorate. As mentioned by Nabi
et al. (2017), using social media is an avenue for
college students to cope with stressful environment.
When under pressure, college students prefer to log
on to social media to relieve stress and regulate their
emotions, so in effect stress increases the time they
spent on social media (Brailovskaia et al., 2019).
Furthermore, college students under greater pressure
often fail to achieve good results in the exams (Prato
and Yucha, 2013). Earlier studies have hinted that
stress may indirectly affect college students'
academic performance through social media use
(Wang et al., 2020), but no research has yet verified
this. Through empirical analysis, our study has
confirmed the existence of this relationship, which
suggests that stress can indirectly affects academic
performance through the mediating effect of use
intensity. Like the direct influence coefficient, the
indirect influence coefficient is also negative,
indicating that there is a close relationship between
the stress college students face and the deterioration
of their academic performance.
6 CONCLUSION
With the increase of time spent on social media,
more and more college students' academic
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performance has been negatively affected. This study
systematically explored the complex association
among use intensity, self-esteem, stress and college
students' academic performance. Through theoretical
and empirical analysis, the research has obtained
some new findings, which can enrich the research
literature in this field. In addition, the research
conclusion can also provide some references for
educators to help college students appropriately use
social media. For instance, given the close link
between self-esteem, stress and social media use,
educators should take effective measures to improve
college students' self-esteem and reduce their stress
level.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is supported by the Anhui Philosophy and
Social Sciences Planning Project
(AHSKQ2021D40).
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