Media and technology usage, attitudes towards media, sex, and generational status as predictors of mental health among university students

Abstract

Research has shown that university students are a vulnerable population that faces multiple challenges, especially relating to their mental health. It has become evident that depression, anxiety, and stress are common mental health concerns reported among undergraduate university students. Although various factors contribute to the reported increase in depression, anxiety, and stress, one prominent and concerning factor that has been identified is student’s media and technology usage in their daily functioning as well as their attitudes toward media and technology usage. The main objective of this research study was therefore to determine which predictor/independent variable(s) or combination of variables investigated in the current study were responsible for the largest percentage of variance in the mental health (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) of undergraduate university students.

The predictor/independent variable(s) that were investigated includes media and technology usage, attitudes towards media, sex, and generational status of students. Moreover, the differences in mental health of undergraduate university students with regards to sex (male vs female), and generational status (first-generation vs non-first-generation) were also investigated in the study. This study used a quantitative research approach along with a non-experimental research type. Moreover, a cross-sectional correlational research design was used to investigate the relationship between the different dependent and independent variables. An existing data set of a research project was used in the study. The sample included 1191 undergraduate university students, between the ages of 18 and 29 years old, from the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa.

The study made use of the 𝘋𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘈𝘯𝘹𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦 (DASS) and the 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘜𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦 (MTUAS) to measure the students’ mental health and media and technology usage as well their attitudes towards media and technology respectively. The results from the hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the combination of independent (predictor) variables statistically significantly predicted Depression and Anxiety respectively, with both findings indicating medium practical significance. The results of the stepwise regression analyses conducted indicated that five of the nine independent variables, namely Media Usage for Leisure, Preference for Task Switching, Positive Attitudes towards Media and Technology, Media Anxiety/Dependence, and Media Usage for Communication in combination statistically significantly contributed to 12.2% of the total variance in Depression. Moreover, five of the nine independent variables, namely Media Usage for Leisure, Preference for Task Switching, Positive Attitudes towards Media and Technology, Media Anxiety/Dependence, and Media Usage for Communication in combination statistically significantly contributed to 13.8% of the total variance in Anxiety.

Lastly, five of the nine independent variables, namely Preference for Task Switching, Media Usage for Leisure, Media Anxiety/Dependence, Positive Attitudes, and Negative Attitudes made a statistically significant contribution to the variance of Stress, although the results indicated that these variables, individually or in combination, were of no practical significance.