With the rapid development of mobile internet technology, short video applications have entered the vision of the Chinese public, such as Tik Tok and Kwai, which have been widely accepted and used by people, especially college students. According to an authoritative survey, the number of short video users in China has reached 1026 million, accounting for 95.2% of the total Internet users [1]. While short video applications make life more colorful, they have become a "sweet poison". Once used, some users are difficult to stop and even develop symptoms of addiction. Therefore, following internet gaming disorder, short video addiction has become a new phenomenon concerned by researchers. Short video addiction is an obsessive state in which individuals repeatedly, frequently, and uncontrollably use short videos. Once users become addicted, it will bring adverse effects on their physical and mental health, such as anxiety, depression, stress, self-harm, as well as anorexia [2, 3, 4]. For this reason, short video addiction has attracted the attention of parents, schools, and society and has become an important topic in many disciplines, including psychology, pedagogy, and sociology. Therefore, exploring the risk factors of short video addiction to prevent it scientifically and protect users' physical and mental health is necessary.
Social exclusion and short video addiction
Although some influencing factors of short video addiction have been discussed, social exclusion is rarely involved. Social exclusion refers to the interactive phenomenon of being rejected and ignored by individuals or groups in social communication, which is a stressful event in interpersonal communication [5]. According to the general strain model, problem behaviors like short video addiction are closely related to external stress or stressors [6]. There are three kinds of external pressure: The frustration of individual psychological needs, the reduction of positive experiences, and exposure to negative experiences. Social exclusion belongs to harmful experience exposure so it may lead to short video addiction. Individuals who are rejected by others can lead to psychological pain, prompting the individual to develop an escape motivation. Short videos become good placebos, and individuals can choose content that makes them feel happy according to their preferences to fight the pain caused by social exclusion [7]. More importantly, the application platform can automatically and continuously push the content individuals are interested in according to their preferences to get positive rewards continually [8]. This sense of psychological compensation and pleasure makes it easy for individuals to become addicted. As a new phenomenon and problem, few studies have directly discussed the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction. Still, similar studies have found that social exclusion is significantly related to other forms of technical addiction, such as mobile phone dependence and Internet addiction [5]. In summary, this study proposes hypothesis 1: social exclusion can significantly predict short video addiction.
Boredom as a mediator
According to the general strain model, the influence of external stressors on short video addiction is often mediated by negative emotions [6]. Previous studies have paid more attention to anxiety and depression, but little attention has been paid to the impact of boredom on individual psychological and behavioral problems. Therefore, this study attempted to examine the mediating role of boredom in the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction.
Boredom is “a negative experience of desiring but being unable to engage with the environment or in satisfying activities” [9]. On the one hand, social exclusion is related to boredom. In other words, social exclusion may be one of the causes of boredom. According to psychological needs theory, establishing social relationships is essential to psychological needs [10, 11]. Social exclusion can lead to lacking basic psychological needs such as individual belonging and esteem needs. This unsatisfied state of psychological needs makes individuals feel dissatisfied with life and lacks a sense of meaning in life, thus arousing boredom [12].
On the other hand, boredom is related to short video addiction. According to the sensation-seeking theory, it is difficult for individuals to survive in a "vacuum" of sensation, and certain stimuli are needed to maintain the sensory balance of the body [13]. Boredom is a state of low arousal that will drive individuals to seek meaningful or extreme stimulation actively. Short videos can automatically screen and push content according to personal preferences, which can highly fit an individual's personalized needs and bring individuals a sense of pleasure and excitement, so it is easy to make them addicted. In addition, similar studies have found a significant relationship between boredom and Facebook addiction [11]. Therefore, this study proposes hypothesis 2: Boredom would mediate the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction.
Self-control as a mediator
Self-control refers to the ability to consciously control the direction of one's behavior by overcoming impulses and habitual or automatic responses [14]. Based on the literature review, self-control may mediate the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction. Firstly, social exclusion is related to self-control. According to the temporal need-threat model, the social exclusion will threaten various psychological needs of individuals, including the sense of control [15, 16]. In addition, social exclusion will consume individuals' cognitive resources, reduce their sense of self-efficacy, and lead to impaired self-control ability [17]. Empirical research also found a significant negative correlation between social exclusion and self-control [15, 18].
Secondly, self-control is related to short video addiction. According to the I-PACE model of addictive behavior, weak self-control ability is a risk factor for addictive behavior [19]. Faced with short videos' beautiful content and functions, individuals with better self-control can rationally control and adjust their internal needs. It makes their user behavior more aligned with social expectations and norms, and they will not be addicted to short videos [20]. On the contrary, individuals with poor self-control can hardly resist the great content presented in short videos. They will lose the sense of time in the process of using, which makes them more prone to short video addiction. Previous studies have found a significant negative correlation between self-control and mobile phone or social media addiction [21, 22, 23]. Therefore, this study proposes hypothesis 3: self-control would mediate the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction.
A Sequential mediation model
Boredom may be an essential factor affecting self-control. According to the I-PACE model of addictive behavior, both negative emotions and psychological stress will consume self-regulation resources and impact individual self-regulation systems [19]. As a negative emotional experience, boredom may lead to higher levels of ego depletion, reducing self-control over future behavior [24]. In addition, Boredom could also aggravate an individual's sensation-seeking, which leads to impaired self-control [25]. An empirical study found that individuals with higher levels of boredom have poorer self-control and become more impulsive [22]. A longitudinal study also found that depressive symptoms predicted deficits in executive functioning rather than the other way around [26]. In summary, social exclusion may increase boredom, reduce self-control, and eventually lead to short video addiction. Therefore, this study proposes hypothesis 4: boredom and self-control would sequentially mediate the relationship between social exclusion and short video addiction.
In summary, our proposed serial mediation model of the link between social exclusion and short video addiction is exhibited in Fig. 1.