Does Media Usage Lead to Psychological Distress? The Mediating Effect of User Participation on Psychological Well-Being and Depression

One of the heated debates around media use is whether it is good or bad for psychological wellbeing. The debate deepened with the dramatic rise of social networking services (SNS) as it was recognized that too much information from SNS could be problematic. In this sense, many studies have been conducted on the media fatigue phenomenon. However, most have focused on what causes media fatigue, whereas the relationship between media fatigue and psychological wellbeing remains underdeveloped. Thus, this study examined whether media usage was associated with psychological wellbeing. We also examined the mediating effect of user participation as a media platform developed from one-way to two-way and further to a multi-directional process. To examine the effect of various media on the change in users’ psychological wellbeing index over 5 years, the data from the Korean Media Panel Survey conducted by the Korean Information Society Development Institute in 2013 to 2017 (N = 6,715) were used for constructing the longitudinal data for cross-sectional analysis. We found a significant relationship between media usage and psychological wellbeing and a significant mediating effect of user participation. The results show that traditional and new media have distinct roles in users’ psychological wellbeing and work differently based on the mediating effect of users’ participation.