Relationships between digital leisure and happiness among international students during the COVID-19 pandemic: examining a mediation model

Liang Chih Chang, John Dattilo, Fei Hsin Huang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Digital leisure may help international students experience happiness during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is unclear how digital leisure promotes happiness. To address this area of limited research, we identified social support from contexts of digital leisure as digital leisure social support (DLSS) and divided DLSS into digital leisure emotional support (DLES) and digital leisure instrumental support (DLIS) as well as examined relationships among DLES, DLIS, hope, and happiness. A total of 282 international students who attended a private university participated in this study. We used in-person surveys to measure DLES, DLIS, hope, and happiness. We conducted structural equation modelling to analyse the data. Results indicated that high levels of DLES predicted high levels of hope; high levels of hope predicted high levels of happiness; and high levels of DLES predicted high levels of happiness in the mediation model. However, DLIS did not correlate with hope and happiness. We discuss the implications of these results in terms of promoting happiness among international students during these challenging times.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)677-691
Number of pages15
JournalLeisure Studies
Volume43
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management

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