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Article History

Received: 22 November 2024

Accepted: 21 October 2025

First Online: 27 November 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. According to Article 13 of the Enforcement Regulations of the Bioethics and Safety Act of Korea, social science research that does not collect sensitive personal information from participants is not subject to institutional review (official text available at the Korean National Law Information Center: link, ). In addition, according to the Measures for Science and Technology Ethics Reviews issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in September 2023, ethics review is also not required for this type of study. Article 2 of the Measures stipulates that ethics review is required for science and technology activities involving human participants (including testing, surveys, and observations) that collect personal information or biological data; however, social science research that does not involve personal privacy, biological or medical intervention, or national security does not require ethics review (The official Chinese government URL: ). Therefore, under both Korean and Chinese regulations, this study did not require institutional ethics review or approval. All participants were adult SNS users who voluntarily completed the survey, and all responses were collected anonymously, kept strictly confidential, and used solely for academic research purposes.

: Informed consent was obtained from all respondents included in the study. During the data collection period from August 1 to August 10, 2024, the respondents were presented with an informed consent form outlining the research purpose, the confidentiality and anonymity of information, voluntary participation, and the right to withdraw from the study at any time. On the first page of the online questionnaire, participants were required to actively confirm their consent by selecting the option “I want to participate in the research” before proceeding to the main survey. This process ensured that all participants were fully informed and voluntarily agreed to participate and have their data processed.