Digital stress among Chinese adolescents: a focus group study

Abstract

Introduction. Current digital stress studies among teenagers overlooked a population with distinct societal and cultural characteristics: Chinese teenagers. This paper reports differences in Chinese adolescents’ attitudes towards components of digital stress and presents two novel stressors. Method. This study investigated 74 participants in three senior high schools (grade 10 - grade 12) in China via focus group interviews. Transcripts of the interviews were used for analysis. Analysis. Qualitative analysis was used for this study. The software MAXQDA for Qualitative Data Analysis (Version 22.7.0, 2022) was used for the analysis steps. Result. The analysis reveals differences in Chinese adolescents’ attitudes towards components of digital stress in terms of online vigilance and communication overload. In addition, two novel stressors - the obligated use of learning features in social media and perceived social issues from media or news applications – were identified. Conclusion. Digital stress among Chinese adolescents was significantly different compared to the extant digital stress framework. Such differences were both manifested in better tolerance of certain stressors (e.g. online vigilance or information overload) and in the emergence of novel stressors, such as obligation resentment and social concerns.