Background: Mental illness is a growing concern within many college campuses. Limited access to therapy resources, along with the fear of stigma, often prevents students from seeking help. Introducing supportive interventions, coping strategies, and mitigation programs might decrease the negative effects of mental illness among college students. Objective: Many college students find social support for a variety of needs through social media platforms. With the pervasive adoption of social media sites in college populations, in this study, we examine whether and how these platforms may help meet college students’ mental health needs. Methods: We first conducted a survey among 101 students, followed by semistructured interviews (n=11), of a large public university in the southeast region of the United States to understand whether, to what extent, and how students appropriate social media platforms to suit their struggle with mental health concerns. The interviews were intended to provide comprehensive information on students’ attitudes and their perceived benefits and limitations of social media as platforms for mental health support. Results: Our survey revealed that a large number of participating students (71/101, 70.3%) had recently experienced some form of stress, anxiety, or other mental health challenges related to college life. Half of them (52/101, 51.5%) also reported having appropriated some social media platforms for self-disclosure or help, indicating the pervasiveness of this practice. Through our interviews, we obtained deeper insights into these initial observations. We identified specific academic, personal, and social life stressors; motivations behind social media use for mental health needs; and specific platform affordances that helped or hindered this use. Conclusions: Students recognized the benefits of social media in helping connect with peers on campus and promoting informal and candid disclosures. However, they argued against complete anonymity in platforms for mental health help and advocated the need for privacy and boundary regulation mechanisms in social media platforms supporting this use. Our findings bear implications for informing campus counseling efforts and in designing social media–based mental health support tools for college students.

中文翻译：

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了解基于社交媒体的心理健康支持在大学生中的作用：调查和半结构化访谈

背景：精神疾病在许多大学校园中日益受到关注。获得治疗资源的机会有限，再加上对耻辱的恐惧，常常阻碍学生寻求帮助。引入支持性干预措施、应对策略和缓解计划可能会减少大学生精神疾病的负面影响。目标：许多大学生通过社交媒体平台找到满足各种需求的社会支持。随着社交媒体网站在大学生中的普遍采用，在这项研究中，我们研究了这些平台是否以及如何帮助满足大学生的心理健康需求。方法：我们首先对美国东南部地区一所大型公立大学的 101 名学生进行了调查，随后进行了半结构化访谈 (n=11)，以了解学生是否、在多大程度上以及如何利用社交媒体平台适合他们与心理健康问题的斗争。访谈旨在提供有关学生态度以及他们认为社交媒体作为心理健康支持平台的好处和局限性的全面信息。结果：我们的调查显示，大量参与的学生（71/101，70.3%）最近经历过某种形式的压力、焦虑或其他与大学生活相关的心理健康挑战。其中一半（52/101，51.5%）还表示曾利用一些社交媒体平台进行自我表露或寻求帮助，这表明这种做法非常普遍。通过采访，我们对这些初步观察结果有了更深入的了解。我们确定了特定的学术、个人和社交生活压力源；使用社交媒体满足心理健康需求的动机；以及帮助或阻碍这种使用的特定平台可供性。结论：学生们认识到社交媒体在帮助与校园同龄人建立联系以及促进非正式和坦诚的披露方面的好处。然而，他们反对心理健康帮助平台中的完全匿名，并主张在支持这种用途的社交媒体平台中需要隐私和边界监管机制。我们的研究结果对于为校园咨询工作提供信息以及为大学生设计基于社交媒体的心理健康支持工具具有重要意义。