Exploring the Complex Relationship between Social Network Addiction and Mental Health in College Students: A Study Based on Multi-layer Network Analysis

Abstract

With the development of science and technology, various types of online social media have developed rapidly, attracting a large number of users, but excessive use of social network addiction phenomenon, affecting the life and mental health. For college students, social network addiction is not uncommon and affects their mental health, so it is very important to understand the relationship between social network addiction and mental health and to intervene, so this study aims to explore the relationship between social network addiction and mental health. In this study, 1141 college students completed the Social Networking Addiction Scale and the College Mental Health Scale through an online survey. Social network addiction and mental health were then included as nodes and network analysis was performed using R software. It was found that, in the node network graph, there was a link between the well-being experience dimension of mental health and the mood change dimension of social network addiction, and there was a link between the courage to challenge dimension of mental health and the online social interaction preference dimension of social network addiction. In the total sample and the male sample, "I feel that my life is boring" in the mental health scale is the node with the highest intensity, while "I can't concentrate on my study" in the mental health scale has the highest node intensity in the female sample. From the above results, it is concluded that there is a relationship between some dimensions of social network addiction and some dimensions of mental health among college students. Individuals' boredom affects their mental health and social network addiction, and in the case of female college students, their commitment to study also affects their mental health and social network addiction.