A study on the impact of college students’ employment-oriented social media use on employment anxiety: a dual mediation effect based on social capital and risk perception

Abstract

Amid pervasive digital media and fierce employment competition, social media serves as a key source of job information and professional connections for college students. Grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and cognitive behavioral theory, this study constructs a latent variable structural model featuring dual parallel mediators (social capital, risk perception). Based on questionnaire data from 2,008 students recruited from multiple universities across different regions of China, this study combines confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling (SEM), hierarchical regression, and Bootstrap mediation tests via SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 to systematically examine the hypothesized paths. The results indicate that: (1) employment-oriented social media use shows a significant negative statistical association with employment anxiety; (2) employment-oriented social media use is positively associated with both social capital and risk perception; (3) Both social capital and risk perception play a significant partial mediating role between employment-oriented social media use and employment anxiety, with mediation effect sizes of 27.3% and 26.4%, respectively, verified via formal latent structural path decomposition; (4) Institutional tier and family income show significant differences in core variables: students from “Double First-Class” universities and those with higher family incomes demonstrate higher levels of employment-oriented social media use and social capital, alongside lower employment anxiety; (5) College students prioritize platforms such as Douyin, Weibo, and Liepin for employment information acquisition. This study clarifies the dual resource-cognition transmission mechanism through standardized latent structural modeling, and systematically interprets all path associations under the Theory of Planned Behavior and cognitive behavioral theory. Results reveal that rational, goal-oriented employment-focused social media use is statistically linked to diminished employment anxiety. This buffering effect operates via improved social capital and risk perception from the lens of cognitive appraisal theory, yet the risk perception pathway remains theoretically speculative and needs further empirical testing. Though the dual-mediation framework holds theoretical generalizability, the findings are embedded within China’s higher education and social media environment, demanding cross-cultural validation for broader application. This study delivers empirical evidence and actionable implications for career counselling, student employability development and online employment information ecosystem optimisation.