The effect of grandparental care on social networking sites addiction in college: mediated by social anxiety and loneliness.

Objective: Grandparental care has become a common phenomenon, yet there is still limited research on the long-term psychological effects on children raised by their grandparents. This study aims to explore the impact of early grandparental care experiences on university students' social networking sites addiction, social anxiety, and loneliness.

Methods: A random cluster sampling method was employed to select college students from a medical school in Jiangxi for a questionnaire survey. The study measured social networking sites addiction, social anxiety, and loneliness using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), Interaction Anxiety Scale (IAS), and Loneliness Scale (ULS-6) respectively. Additionally, grandparental care was assessed through individual questions. Data analysis was conducted using mediated effects modeling.

Results: In total, 4318 participants were recruited. 45.2% of participants were male and 54.8% were female. The study found a significant positive association between grandparental care experience and social networking sites addiction, social anxiety, and loneliness. The study revealed that social anxiety mediated 20.0% of the effect between grandparental care experiences and social networking sites addiction, while loneliness mediated 16.0% of this effect. Moreover, social anxiety and loneliness together mediated 12.0% of the chained effects between grandparental care experiences and social networking sites addiction.

Conclusion: Grandparental care has no direct impact on social networking sites addiction in adulthood. Social anxiety and loneliness play a mediating role between grandparental care and social networking sites addiction. Therefore, schools and families should prioritize efforts to enhance the physical and mental well-being of individuals receiving grandparental care. This can be achieved through targeted health promotion initiatives.