The Relationship Between the Use of Mobile Social Media and Subjective Well-Being: The Mediating Effect of Boredom Proneness

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study took users of short-form mobile videos as research participants to explore the role of their boredom proneness in mediating the relationship between the use of mobile social media (UMSM) and subjective well-being (SWB).MethodsA sample of 656 users was evaluated by the Problematic Mobile Social Media Usage Assessment Questionnaire, General Well-Being Schedule, and Boredom Proneness Scale.ResultsFirstly, significant interactions were found between monthly living expenses and the UMSM of the participants, which were recognized as factors affecting SWB. Secondly, the level of living expenses had little effect on the high-level and low-level groups of the UMSM but imposed a significant impact on the medium-level group. Thirdly, the UMSM showed an influence that could positively predict boredom; both the UMSM and boredom demonstrated a negative predictive effect on SWB.ConclusionThe findings indicate that the inappropriate use of mobile social media negatively affects users’ subjective well-being; boredom partially mediated the relationship between the use of mobile social media and SWB.

Boredom and problematic Facebook use in adolescents: What is the relationship considering trait or state boredom?

“…Taking together all the premises, this study was aimed at investigating a possible mechanism through which TB, PFU, and SB are related. A simple mediation model was hypothesised and tested, predicting that a) TB would be positively related to PFU, in line with previous studies with adolescents regarding unhealthy behaviours (Bai et al, 2021;Biolcati et al, 2018;Chou et al, 2018;Hong et al, 2020;Weybright et al, 2015) and with adults concerning Facebook use (Caci et al, 2014); b) that PFU, in turn, would be positively associated with SB, consistent with the relationship between PFU and psychological distress (e.g., Demirci et al, 2020;Marino et al, 2018), among which high levels of SB can be considered (Chao et al, 2020;Tutzer et al, 2020); c) that PFU would be a mediator of the positive relationship between TB and SB (Mercer-Lynn et al, 2014), predicting that a high individual sensitivity to boredom may enhance the likelihood of employing Facebook excessively and in addictive way and that, in turn, PFU may enhance adolescents' situational experience of boredom.…”

“…Following the above cited studies with adolescents (Bai et al, 2021;Biolcati et al, 2018;Chou et al, 2018;Hong et al, 2020;Weybright et al, 2015) and recent studies with adults indicating that boredom proneness is related to problematic smartphone use (Elhai et al, 2017), Internet control disorder (Brand et al, 2019;Wegmann et al, 2018), and to longer sessions on Facebook (Caci et al, 2014), we hypothesised that TB would be positively related to PFU in youth.…”

“…It is well-known that youth with high level of TB are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours related to substances, such as drug use (Weybright et al, 2015) and alcohol abuse (Biolcati et al, 2018), and also non-substance addictive behaviours, such as problematic Internet use (Chou et al, 2018), social network addiction (Bai et al, 2021), and problematic smartphone use (Hong et al, 2020). The majority of these studies considered the association of TB with at-risk behaviours.…”

“…Considering adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, it has been shown that higher levels of TB were associated with a higher risk of Internet addiction; in particular, higher scores for lack of external stimulation were associated with a high tendency to engage in online gaming, whereas higher scores for lack of internal stimulation were associated with a low tendency to engage in online studying (Chou et al, 2018). Research also suggests that problematic use of social media positively predicts boredom susceptibility which, in turn, has a negative predictive effect on subjective wellbeing (Bai et al, 2021), and that autonomy need dissatisfaction affects problematic smartphone use through TB (Hong et al, 2020).…”

College students’ reception of social networking tools for learning in India: an extended UTAUT model

“…The development of social networking tools in the field of education is accelerating quickly. The widespread use of such tools in education necessitates that teachers and students comprehend and adapt them for the successful implementation of education plans and policies and deployment of course content on e-platforms (Bai et al, 2021 ). Social media tools with their new and novel features provide opportunities for two-way communication, collaborative learning, feedback and assessment.…”