Association Between Introversion Personality and Social Media Usage-Related Social Anxiety Among Chinese College Students: Chain Mediating Effects of Interaction Anxiousness and Mobile Phone Addiction

<b>BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE</b>: Social anxiety arising from intensive social media usage (SMU) among adolescents and youth has gained extensive attention in recent years due to its negative influence on mental health and academic performance. In spite of that, there is a dearth regarding the etiology of SMU-related social anxiety. This study aims to further clarify the influence of introversion personality on SMU-related social anxiety and the mechanism underlying such an association and provide a new perspective for developing effective intervention strategies for the highly prevailing SMU-related anxiety among Chinese college students. <b>METHODS</b>: A cohort of 979 college students (266 males and 713 females) aged 20.90 ± 1.91 years was enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Four measures including the "extroversion" domain of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, Short Scale (EPQ-R-S E), Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS), Mobile Phone Addiction Index (MPAI), and Social Anxiety Scale for Social Media Users (SAS-SMU) were used to evaluate the influence of introversion personality on SMU-related social anxiety that was potentially mediated sequentially by interaction anxiousness and mobile phone addiction. Hayes PROCESS was used for correlation and mediation analysis. <b>RESULTS</b>: Interaction anxiousness (indirect effect = -1.331, 95% <i>CI</i> : -1.559 - -1.122) partially mediated the association between introversion personality and SMU-related social anxiety. Besides, a sequential mediation of interaction anxiousness and mobile phone addiction in the link between introversion personality and SMU-related social anxiety was revealed (indirect effect = -0.308, 95% <i>CI</i> : -0.404 - -0.220). No significant mediating effect was found with mobile phone addiction in the association between introversion personality and SMU-related social anxiety. <b>CONCLUSION</b>: Targeting interaction anxiousness and mobile phone addiction may represent an efficient strategy alleviating SMU-related social anxiety among Chinese college students with introversion personality.