Navigating the digital landscape: Exploring the relationship between social media affordances and Chinese Generation Z’s online prosocial and antisocial behaviors

Online prosocial and antisocial behaviors are increasingly prevalent on social media, highlighting the need to explore the factors that shape these online social behaviors. Understanding the influencing factors, including social media use, is crucial for fostering healthy online interactions and mitigating potential risks in digital environments. In this study, we examine whether and how online prosocial and antisocial behaviors are associated with social media affordances, specifically the notions of bandwidth, social presence, anonymity, and ephemerality. Based on the collected sample of Chinese Generation Z (N = 782), the online survey study finds that bandwidth and social presence are positively associated with online prosocial behavior through online social support. On the other hand, anonymity is negatively related to online prosocial behavior through online social support and positively related to online antisocial behavior through online disinhibition. Also, ephemerality is positively associated with online antisocial behavior through the indirect effect of online disinhibition. Interestingly, while online social support positively predicts online prosocial behavior and online disinhibition positively predicts online antisocial behavior, the relationship between online social support and online antisocial behavior is not as simple. The relation is found to be positive for females and emerging adults, negative for adolescents, and insignificant for males. Theoretical implications for social media use and online social behaviors, as well as practical implications for online prosocial and antisocial behavior interventions, are discussed.