The Influence of Social Media Use Intensity, Self-Esteem and Stress

on College Students’ Academic Performance

Lei Zhao

and Zehui Yao

Wendian College, Anhui University, Hefei, China

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

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

 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.

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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

Number

(

)

Gende

Male 161

(

42.6%

)

Female 217(57.4%)

17-25 years 378(100%)

Education level

Undergraduate 245(64.8%)

Post

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

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:

/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

Z Academic Performance

803

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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