When social media becomes a mirror: A serial mediation path from social appearance anxiety to social media fatigue among young adults.

In today's visually driven digital culture, social media platforms constitute a central context for identity development and self-presentation, particularly among young adults. Grounded in Social Comparison Theory and Impression Management Theory, this study proposes a process-oriented model explaining how social appearance anxiety is associated with social media fatigue through sequential psychological mechanisms. Specifically, the study examined the serial mediating roles of appearance-related social media consciousness and social media false self-presentation in the relationship between social appearance anxiety and social media fatigue. Data were collected from 440 university students aged between 18 and 35 (M = 22.40). Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that higher levels of social appearance anxiety were associated with greater appearance-related social media consciousness, reflecting heightened attentional focus on physical appearance in digital environments. This form of appearance-related consciousness was, in turn, associated with a stronger tendency toward social media false self-presentation. Such behavioral tendency was positively associated with social media fatigue, suggesting that sustained efforts to regulate appearance and manage impressions online may be psychologically demanding in digital contexts. These findings demonstrate that the association between social appearance anxiety and social media fatigue operates through sequential cognitive and behavioral processes. Multi-group SEM analyses further showed that the proposed serial mediation model functioned similarly across women and men, indicating that the underlying mechanisms are consistent across gender. By integrating social comparison and impression management perspectives, this study extends body image research by positioning social media fatigue as an outcome of appearance-focused self-regulatory processes in social media contexts.