关键词: 社交媒体使用, 人际适应, 自我概念清晰性, 嫉妒, 残差动态结构方程模型

Abstract: College freshmen in early adulthood undergo a critical stage of social role reconstruction, facing new challenges in interpersonal adaptation and environmental integration. Although previous studies have examined the relationship between social media use and interpersonal adaptation among college students, most employed cross-sectional or long-term longitudinal designs, making it difficult to capture the daily, real-time dynamics between these variables during freshmen’s first month. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this relationship within intensive time frames remain underexplored. Therefore, this study used the first month of college as a temporal window and employed the residual dynamic structural equation model (RDSEM) to examine the fine-grained temporal associations between social media use and interpersonal adaptation. It further investigated the intensive mediating effect of self–concept clarity and the cross-level moderating effect of envy. During the first month of college, a 30-day intensive longitudinal survey was conducted among 306 college freshmen (Mage = 18.18 years, SD = 0.63; 71.9% female). Each day at 8:30 p.m., participants received an online questionnaire and were asked to complete it within 30 minutes. If no response was received within 20 minutes, the system automatically sent a reminder, and the questionnaire closed 10 minutes later. On average, participants spent approximately five minutes completing the survey each day. RDSEM analyses were conducted using Mplus 8.7 to examine the fine-grained cross-lagged effects among the variables and a moderated mediation model. The results showed that (1) social media use at time t–1 significantly and negatively predicted freshmen’s interpersonal adaptation at time t; (2) social media use at time t–2 significantly and negatively predicted self–concept clarity at time t–1, which in turn positively predicted freshmen’s interpersonal adaptation at time t; and (3) freshmen with higher levels of envy were more susceptible to the negative effects of social media use at time t–2, exhibiting lower interpersonal adaptation at time t and a greater decline in self–concept clarity at time t–1. These findings suggest that to mitigate the negative impact of social media on interpersonal adaptation, freshmen should be guided to appropriately regulate their social media use during the initial stage of college and to cultivate a more integrated and stable self-concept. In addition, freshmen with higher levels of envy should be identified as a key group for targeted support, in order to reduce their tendency to perceive others’ positive self-presentations on social media as threatening. Overall, this study deepens the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the negative effects of social media during the college adjustment period and provides practical implications for promoting smoother adaptation among freshmen in today’s digital environment.

Key words: social media use, interpersonal adaptation, self–concept clarity, envy, residual dynamic structural equation model