Abstract
Background: The rapid development of Social Networking Service (SNS) all over the world has changed everyone's life, of course, China is no exception. At the same time, the possible depression caused by SNS has attracted the attention of academia, but there is little research on the impact of age heterogeneity, especially in China. Objectives: The aim of this study was to further explore the effects of SNS and some factors on depression and to find the differences in these relationships between different age groups. Methods: Based on the data of the tracking interview of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2018 (N= 8,666), this study analyzed the relationship between SNS and depression in China and considered the heterogeneous influence in different age groups and other factors (gender, living in urban or rural, household registration, income, cognitive ability, years of education, health, relationship status, CPC membership, religion, social status, popularity). The theoretical basis of age stages is from Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development. Results: (1) The multiple regression analysis revealed that the depression was positively correlated with SNS dependence, on the whole. However, this effect was not always significant in every age group, and it was most positive at the ages of 16-18. (2) The depression was negatively correlated with health and popularity at all levels of age. (3) The depression appeared obviously gender difference, and it was intensifying by increasing age. (4) For the whole sample, the effects of income, cognitive ability, relationship status and social status on depression were significant, however, the situation was different for each individual age group in this article. (5) The mitigate of religious beliefs on depression was significant only at ages 41-65, and the coefficient was unstable. (6) The effects of years of education, living in urban or rural, household registration, CPC membership on depression were not significant in this study. Conclusion: The impact of SNS on depression was more significant among young people, especially adolescents. A bad situation of health or popularity could increase the risk of depression. Females were more prone to depression. There were different influences of income, cognitive ability, social status, relationship status and religion on depression in different age groups.
Highlights
The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was negatively correlated with the square of age divided by 100, it meant that the correlation between CES-D and age was not a single trend of positive or negative, it was closer to inverse U-shape (Fig. 1)
The CES-D was negatively correlated with the natural logarithm of family annual income, cognitive ability, health, social status, and popularity
The results of this study showed that the CES-D was positively correlated with Social Networking Service (SNS) dependence in the whole sample, but when we consider the heterogeneity in different age groups, this effect was not significant always, it was most positive at the ages 16-18
Summary
In the past two decades, from SixDegrees (which is one of the first social networking websites established in 1997 [1]) to Facebook, we are all the witnesses of the booming develop-. Depression is one of these issues, and it was thought to cause many hazards, such as the risk of suicide and the decline of quality of life [13, 14]. This study focuses on the effect of SNS on depression. The rapid development of Social Networking Service (SNS) all over the world has changed everyone's life, China is no exception. The possible depression caused by SNS has attracted the attention of academia, but there is little research on the impact of age heterogeneity, especially in China
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