Empowering or backfiring? The paradoxical effects of digital media skills on depression through (mis)information sharing on social media

Abstract

This study proposed and tested a novel theoretical framework of media empowerment regarding the relationship between digital media skills and mental health as well as the complex mechanism linking the two. This study utilized an online survey of a representative sample of Shanghai residents (N = 916) to examine the interconnections among digital media skills, (mis)information sharing, and mental health. The findings revealed that the empowerment mechanisms of digital media skills on depression were contradictory at the individual and community levels. For the two dimensions of digital media skills, information skills directly reduced levels of depression but indirectly aggravated depression by promoting misinformation sharing; in contrast, social skills alleviated depression by mitigating misinformation sharing. Furthermore, risk perception positively moderated the relationship between misinformation sharing and depression. This study contributes to the media empowerment literature by empirically demonstrating a linkage between developed digital media skills and media empowerment in the aspect of mental health in the digital age. This study also innovatively highlights specific psychosocial elements of the empowerment processes from a communication perspective.