Perceived neijuan profiles and problematic short-form video use among Chinese college students: indirect associations through anxiety and escape motivation.

Abstract

Against a backdrop of intensifying competition, neijuan has become a common experience among college students and may be associated with problematic short-form video use (PSVU). However, students may experience neijuan in different ways, and the associations between these patterns and PSVU remain unclear. Drawing on the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, this study identified latent profiles of perceived neijuan, compared PSVU across profiles, and examined indirect associations through anxiety and escape motivation. A convenience sample of 818 college students completed the survey. Latent profile analysis based on four dimension scores of perceived neijuan identified four profiles: low perceived neijuan (6.11%), high competition with low burden (7.70%), moderate perceived neijuan (79.71%), and high perceived neijuan (6.48%). Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars (BCH) analyses accounted for classification error in profile comparisons and in a cross-sectional serial indirect-effect model controlling for gender and grade. PSVU was lower in the low perceived neijuan and high-competition, low-burden profiles than in the moderate and high perceived neijuan profiles, whereas the latter two profiles did not differ significantly. Using the moderate profile as the reference, significant indirect associations with PSVU were observed for all three profile contrasts through anxiety, escape motivation, and the serial pathway from anxiety to escape motivation. These findings suggest that perceived competition and subjective burden may combine in different ways, with these configurations showing different associations with PSVU, anxiety, and escape motivation.