The spread of the Internet and the development of mobile
technologies and services are rapidly changing our world and our way
of life, and as the demand for Internet content consumption and online
social networking continues to grow, traditional text ...
The spread of the Internet and the development of mobile
technologies and services are rapidly changing our world and our way
of life, and as the demand for Internet content consumption and online
social networking continues to grow, traditional text and image
content can no longer meet the growing media demand. Young people,
on the other hand, have a faster pace of life and an ever-increasing
need for stimulation, making it difficult for them to consistently invest
large amounts of time to engage in hobbies and entertainment, thus
increasing the demand for short-form entertainment and information.
Short videos are easy to meet people's media needs with rich and
varied content, good interactivity, easy access and short viewing time.
It has become the main means to address users' "fast food" mental
and cultural needs and meet people's short leisure and entertainment
time.
As the most popular short video application nowadays, TikTok
provides users with knowledge and entertainment while stimulating
their senses, and its video content and immersive interaction design
make it easy for college students to become addicted, which leads to
college students' dependence on TikTok and eventually abuse
behaviour, causing a series of negative consequences.
Based on the actual usage of short video TikTok by Chinese
college students, this study combined with media dependence theory to
select relevant variables from three dimensions of individual, society
and media, and constructed a research model of factors affecting the
addictive usage behaviour of TikTok college students; a total of 834
valid samples were collected by distributing questionnaires via the
Internet, and the collected valid sample data were processed by SPSS
23.0 software to verify the theoretical model and research hypotheses
of this study.
To summarise the conclusions of the research hypotheses presented
in this study, they are as follows.
First, the results of the hypothesis test on how personal variables
(knowledge and information expansion, entertainment needs, and
self-expression) affect college students' addiction to short videos
revealed that personal variables (knowledge and information expansion,
entertainment needs, and self-expression) had a positive effect on
college students' addiction to short videos, and personal factors
explained 43.4% of college students' addiction to short videos.
However, among the research hypotheses <Hypothesis 1-1, Hypothesis
1-2, and Hypothesis 1-3>, only the results of entertainment needs and
self-expression had a positive effect on college students' addictive
tendency to short videos.
Second, we tested the hypothesis of whether social variables
(friendship orientation and acculturation) have any effect on short
video addiction among college students, and found that both social
variables (friendship orientation and acculturation) had a positive
effect on short video addiction among college students, explaining
52.1% of the variance in short video addiction.
Third, the results of the hypothesis test on how media variables
(ease, convenience, service variety, recommendation service, and
interactivity) affect short video addiction among college students
revealed that media variables (ease, convenience, service variety,
recommendation service, and interactivity) have a differential effect on
short video addiction among college students, explaining 49.1% of
short video addiction. Among <Research Hypothesis 3-1, Hypothesis
3-2, Hypothesis 3-3, Hypothesis 3-4, and Hypothesis 3-5>, only
convenience, recommendation, and interactivity have a positive effect
on short video addiction.
In this study, three dimensions were identified to measure short
video addiction. The effects of personal, social, and media factors
were all significant. The significance of these results is that they
confirm the relative importance of the components, which has
practical implications for future research on short video addiction.