Unveiling the Influence of TikTok Dependency on University Students’ Post-COVID-19 Health Protective Behavior

Abstract

In the post-COVID-19 era, Chinese university students have become more reliant on TikTok for health information, which has shaped their health-related behavior. In order to investigate how university students’ reliance on health information on TikTok influenced their health protective behaviors in response to COVID-19, a survey questionnaire was designed to measure the following four constructs: TikTok dependency, health information seeking, TikTok trust, and health Protective behavior. A total of 426 respondents in China participated in the survey and the data was analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that respondents who have higher TikTok dependency tend to have higher post-COVID-19 health protective behavior. Study results also found that health information seeking and TikTok trust partially mediate the relationship between TikTok dependency and post-COVID-19 health protective behavior separately. To conclude, the results highlight the important role of TikTok as a social media platform for university students’ post-COVID-19 health protective behavior in Wuhan of China.