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THE IMPACT OF SELF-PROMOTION AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON SLEEP AND MENTAL HEALTH AMONG STUDENT-ATHLETES

Abstract

Nina Adanin and Rhonda Cross Beemer

Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, MO

Mental health among college student-athletes has emerged as a particular issue within the NCAA over the last few years. Many factors can affect this, including quality of sleep, social pressure, and social media. Social media is now integrated into students' daily lives, particularly among college athletes who are potentially considering continuing sports careers after graduation. Modern technology allows and offers an easy and accessible way to communicate with the general public and enhance self-promotion. PURPOSE: To determine to what extent do social media use and self-promotion impact the quality of sleep and mental health among student-athletes in a DII university. METHODS: A sample of 191 student-athletes at Norwest Missouri State University participated in this study. Path analysis was used in order to explore the direct and indirect effects between mental health, quality of sleep, social media use, and self-promotion. Findings of this study provide a better understanding of the potential factors that drive student-athletes’ mental health in a world where social media and self-promotion greatly impact current and future sports careers. RESULTS: Prior to hypotheses testing, descriptive statistics were examined to understand the shape of the data as well as the means for variables of interest. A one-sample t-test was performed to compare self-promotion and social media among gender differences. The mean value of student-athletes that identify as males was significantly different from the student-athletes identified as females for self-promotion t(189) = [2.35], p = 0.02 and for social media t(189) = [5.84], p < 0.01. A Pearson's product moment correlational analysis revealed statistically the strongest significant negative relationships between self-promotion and mental health (r = . - .349, p < .005). The path coefficient from the quality of sleep to mental health had the strongest regression weight of .577. The model explains 28.6% of the variation. Thus, this study found that self-promotion has a big impact on D-II student-athletes' mental health as well as on the quality of sleep. CONCLUSION: This study showed a significant threat to student athletes' mental health and quality of sleep. Causes vary – since we focused only on self-promotion and social media usage. We can conclude that self-promotion has a negative effect on mental health. Based on the previous literature, increased technology use and frequency of being awoken in the night by a cell phone are associated with waking too early, waking unrefreshed, and daytime sleepiness; we also found that those students with more followers on social media have bad quality of sleep and they take more naps over the week.

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