The Relationship between Social Media Use and Rumination among Female College Students

Abstract

Objective: This study explored the relationship between social media use and rumination among female college students, further distinguishing between active social media use and passive social media use. Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 206 female college students. The Active Social Media Use Scale, the Passive Social Media Use Scale, and the Ruminative Responses Scale were used for measurement, and Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted to examine the relationships among the variables. Results: Passive social media use was significantly and positively correlated with rumination (r = 0.421, p < 0.01), and active social media use was also significantly and positively correlated with rumination (r = 0.476, p < 0.01). Regression analyses showed that passive social media use positively predicted rumination (β = 0.421, t = 9.371, p < 0.001), and active social media use also positively predicted rumination (β = 0.476, t = 10.958, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The more frequently female college students use social media, the more likely they are to show a tendency to repeatedly think about personal emotions, appearance evaluation, and social feedback. These findings suggest that college mental health education should pay attention to cognitive response patterns in social media contexts and guide students to develop healthier media-use habits and emotion-regulation strategies.