Sleep quality as a mediator of the relationship between screen time and negative emotions among Chinese college freshmen

ABSTRACT

College freshmen are special populations facing great challenges in adapting to the brand new environment, and their lifestyle and emotional states are worthy of attention. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, their screen time and prevalence of negative emotions were significantly increased, but few studies have focused on such situation of college freshmen and illustrated relevant mechanisms. Thus, based on a sample of Chinese college freshmen during the COVID-19 pandemic, the current study aimed to investigate the association between their screen time and negative emotions (depression, anxiety and stress), and further explore the mediating effects of sleep quality. Data from 2,014 college freshmen was analyzed. The screen time was self-reported by participants using predesigned questionnaires. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Chinese Version of Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) were used to assess sleep quality and emotional states, respectively. The mediation analysis was conducted to examine the meditation effect. Results indicated that participants with negative emotions tended to have longer daily screen time and worse sleep quality, sleep quality partially mediated the association between screen time and negative emotions.The critical role of sleep quality and related intervention measures should be recognized and implemented.

KEYWORDS:

• Screen time
• depression
• anxiety
• stress
• college freshmen

Acknowledgments

We frankly thank all participants and the schools involved in the survey, as well as other staff members on the scene.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.

Author contributions

Heng Lu: Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Gang Liang: Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Dan-Lin Li: Writing – review & editing. Min-Xin Liu: Writing – review & editing. Zhi-Jian Yin: Writing – review & editing. Yue-Zu Li: Writing – review & editing. Tianyang Zhang: Conceptualization, Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Funding. Chen-Wei Pan: Conceptualization, Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Funding.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82160204 and 31800907), the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (22YJCZH243), the Chinese Government Scholarship of China Scholarship Council (202106920027), and the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (2022SJYB1454).