Scale development and validation of social media mindfulness: evidence from Chinese Douyin users

Abstract

Mindfulness has been widely conceptualized and measured across various fields. With increasing attention to the healthy usage of social media, the present study aims to develop a measurement scale for social media mindfulness, intended to guide users towards purposeful and intentional usage, thereby alleviating the adverse effects on mental health caused by obsessive or addictive use of social media. Two studies, comprising the development of the measurement scale and validation through a nomological network linking social media mindfulness and users' psychological wellbeing, were conducted. Consequently, four factors encompassing 19 measuring items were synthesized which are nonjudgement (6 items), attention-acceptance (6 items), description (4 items) and nonreaction (3 items), respectively. Furthermore, the influence of four subconstructs of social media mindfulness on Douyin users' psychological wellbeing has been further validated to ensure the criterion-related validity of the developed measurement scale. Consequently, all constructs have been examined to be positively related to users' psychological wellbeing. Overall, the developed scale offers foundation for future research concerning mindful social media usage. More importantly, mindfulness-based intervention designed to mitigate the negative effects of social media usage can be constructed based on the scale's dimensions.