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Objectives The purpose of this study is to identify the variables that influence SNS addiction tendency among college students. To this end, we established a model in which rejection sensitivity mediates experience avoidance and social anxiety in the path to SNS addiction tendency, and checked the model's fit and the relevance of each variable. Methods For the study, These data were collected from 182 students going to four-year universities in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Chungnam, and frequency analysis and correlation analysis were conducted using SPSS 22.0 to estimate the relationship between variables, and Process Macro Model 6 was used to examine the dual mediation effect. Results The main findings of this study are as follows. First, rejection sensitivity, experience avoidance, social anxiety, and SNS addiction tendencies of male and female college students all showed significant relationships. Second, rejection sensitivity did not directly affect SNS addiction tendencies of both male and female college students, but it affected experience avoidance. Third, for both male and female college students, rejection sensitivity did not have a direct effect on SNS addiction tendency, but it had a significant effect on social anxiety, and experience avoidance also had a significant effect on social anxiety. Fourth, the sequential mediation effects of experience avoidance and social anxiety were found significant in the relationship between rejection sensitivity and SNS addiction tendency for female students, but not for male students. Conclusions This study found the higher rejection sensitive is, the higher SNS addiction tendency is, and the relationship between the two variables can be explained by experience avoidance and social anxiety. In addition, the mediating effect of social anxiety in the relationship between rejection sensitivity and SNS addiction tendency shows gender differences between male and female college students, suggesting that different treatment plans and counseling interventions according to gender are needed to treat SNS addiction tendency.
Jang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.