A study on the relationship between the usage of online social interaction, social support and psychological well being of college students

Abstract

This is a quantitative study on college students from different college and universities. About 160 respondents answered the questionnaires and the data collection period was from end of March 1010. This research presents the relationship between the usage of online social interaction, social support and psychological wellbeing among college students. The results show that psychological wellbeing is significantly associated with one's social support. More accurately, people with more social support, their psychological wellbeing are enhanced accordingly. Secondly, there is significant relationship between time spent on online social interaction on each usage and psychological wellbeing. It indicates that people spent less time on online social interaction, their depressive symptoms, feeling of loneliness dininished and psychological wellbeing is enhanced. Moreover, there were some limitations and difficulties in this research, some suggestions and the directions of further study were discussed.