The impact of video-based social media on college students’ artistic creativity: A case study of quasi-experimental study

The rapid development of video social media has provided a highly efficient platform for cultivating creativity among university students in higher education. Chinese university students have completed numerous creative exercises through large video social networking sites such as Bilibili. This study, using the Torrance Test for Creative Thinking (TTCT) as the primary assessment tool, investigated the impact of video-based social media on the creativity of Chinese animation students. A quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test was conducted with 50 male animation students. The results showed significant improvements across four dimensions of creativity: fluency, elaboration, flexibility, and originality, with fluency showing the largest increase. Correlation and paired-samples t-tests confirmed the robustness and reliability of the intervention. This study theoretically demonstrates that digital environments can stimulate divergent thinking; practically, it provides strategies for using social media in higher education to improve student engagement and problem-solving abilities; and societally, it emphasizes the role of digital platforms in the democratization of creativity and inclusive innovation, thus bridging the gap between creativity theory and digital learning.