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The Use of Microblog, Social Support, and Depression: A Study of Chinese College Students

Jie Zhang and Lu Sha

Background: The Chinese microblog, such as Tencent Weibo and WeChat, as a tool of communication with smart phones like twitter, is getting popular in China. Majority of Chinese college students are now using the microblog for daily communications and web surfing. The smart phone, with its communication and socialization functions, should help increase the level of social support among its users.

Aims: It is to study the relationships among the use of microblog, social support, and depression in Chinese college student populations. It is hypothesized that more frequent users of the microblog are less likely to have depression and have more social support than those who do not use the microblog that often.

Methods: We systematically collected and analysed data of 1,298 Chinese college students on a university campus in Beijing, China. The questionnaire included the measure of depression (CES-D) and social support (MSPSS) as well as a number of demographic variables. We measured the Microblog using with two dimensions: frequency and purposes.

Results: The higher the frequency of the microblog use, the lower the depression level. “Joining discussions and “caring about society” among the purposes of logins were negatively related to depression. The options “airing personal views” and "caring about society" were positively related to the students’ social support level.

Conclusions: The use of microblog has an impact on psychopathology among Chinese college students. It helps reduce depressive symptoms and improve the level of social support through the networking provided by the microblog. Future studies need to be designed to explore the causal relations between the use of microblog and psychopathology