Social media usage of chinese nursing students: Attitudes, motivations, mental health problems, and self-disclosure

Xinhong Zhu; Chongming Yang; Linlin Ding; Xiaona Zhang; Guiyuan Qiao; Xiaolian Gao; Fen Yang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0277674

Social media usage of chinese nursing students: Attitudes, motivations, mental health problems, and self-disclosure

PLoS One. 2022 Dec 14;17(12):e0277674. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277674. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xinhong Zhu¹, Chongming Yang², Linlin Ding¹, Xiaona Zhang¹, Guiyuan Qiao¹, Xiaolian Gao¹, Fen Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Nursing, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan, China.
² College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, United States of America.

Abstract

Background: Excessive self-disclosure online may risk the reputations, mental health problems, and professional lives of nursing students. This study investigated nursing students' usage of social media, their attitudes towards social media, mental health problems and self-disclosures, and the relationships of these variables.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted online (n = 1054) with questionnaires of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), Social Media Fatigue (SMF), Students' Uses and Views of Social Media (SUVSM) and self-disclosure in social media which included self-information shown on social media and information viewed by others.

Results: Although most of them held positive attitudes towards social media, 17.4% of the participants acknowledged that they had posted inappropriate contents online and 37.6% witnessed improper posts from schoolmates or teachers online. SMF was affected by familiar with relevant regulations on the social media usage (β = -.10, p < .001), FoMO (β = .41, p < .001), and SUVSM (β = .17, p < .001). Additionally, nearly 1/3 participants reported their net-friends could view following information: gender, age, occupation, education level and location. Self- disclosure in social media was positively influenced by education (β = .10, p < .001), sharing moments or Weibo, etc. (β = .009, P = 0.009), time spent on social media daily (β = .11, p < .001), accepting stranger's "friend request" (β = .06, P = 0.047), FoMO (β = .14, p < .001) and SMF (β = .19, p < .001). Furthermore, effect of SUVSM on self-disclosure in social media was mediated by FoMO and SMF.

Conclusion: Inappropriate contents are posted and witnessed by appreciable proportions of nursing students. Positive attitude towards social media may strengthen FoMO and SMF, which may increase self-disclosure in social media in turn.

Copyright: © 2022 Zhu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Attitude
Cross-Sectional Studies
Disclosure
East Asian People
Humans
Mental Health
Motivation
Social Media*
Students, Nursing*

Grants and funding

Yes, this work was supported by the National Natural Science Found of China (No. 82003448). The views expressed are those of the authors. The National Natural Science Found of China had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.