How Does Social Media Usage Intensity Influence Adolescents' Social Anxiety: The Chain Mediating Role of Imaginary Audience and Appearance Self-Esteem

Background: To reduce adolescents' social anxiety, the study integrates external factors (social media usage) with internal factors (imaginary audience and appearance-based self-esteem) to internal mechanisms of adolescents' social anxiety in the Internet age based on objective self-awareness theory and self-esteem importance weighting model. Methods: Utilizing the Social Media Usage Intensity Scale, Social Anxiety Scale, imaginary Audience Scale, and Physical Self Questionnaire, we surveyed 400 junior high school students from three schools in Hubei province, China. Results: A significantly positive correlation is revealed between the intensity of social media usage and both social anxiety and imaginary audience (p < 0.001). Conversely, social media usage intensity and appearance self-esteem are significantly negatively correlated (p < 0.001). Additionally, the perception of an imaginary audience was negatively correlated with appearance self-esteem (p < 0.001). Furthermore, we found that imaginary audience (indirect effect of 0.14, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.07]) and appearance self-esteem (indirect effect of 0.14, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.07]) can respectively act as independent mediators between social networking site use intensity and social anxiety, Additionally, the relationship between imaginary audience and appearance self-esteem can also be chain-mediated (indirect effect of 0.03, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.02]) separately affect the relationship between the two. Conclusion: The imaginary audience serves as an independent mediator that links social media usage intensity to social anxiety among adolescents. Additionally, the observed chain mediation effect involving both the imaginary audience and appearance self-esteem provides novel insights for developing strategies aimed at addressing adolescent social anxiety.