Emotions During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Health Versus Economy Analysis of Public Responses

Abstract

People all over the world were under severe stress and were concerned about their health after a devastating pandemic struck the world in the form of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in late December 2019. Many nations imposed strict lockdowns and quarantines, causing citizens to maintain social isolation, throwing many companies to a halt. Thousands of people took to Twitter during these challenging circumstances to express their feelings about being caught in the middle of a storm. Twitter witnessed an outpouring of emotions ranging from fear, anger, and sadness associated with the spread of a novel virus that has no known cure, to voices of support and trust for nations’ official response to the pandemic. In studying the emotional response (anger, fear, and sadness) on Twitter about the COVID-19 crisis, we thus see a tale of two crises unfold—choosing health or economy. We capture collective emotions on social media and investigate the patterns and impact of these negative emotions during various stages of the disease outbreak. It also provides crucial insights to health officials and government agencies on communicating crisis information to the public via social media.

The Asymmetric Influence of Emotion in the Sharing of COVID-19 Science on Social Media: Observational Study

“…We have further provided details on the distribution of these specific emotions in all 3 subgroups in Table 3 . The results of this classification were largely consistent with the findings of recent studies that have profiled public emotions on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 10 , 40 ], where the authors also found a prevalence of negative emotions such as fear.…”

“…On the one hand, the heightened situational uncertainty induced by the pandemic [39] could potentially lead to even stronger "negativity bias." Recent studies found a heightened prevalence of negative emotions or a negative emotional climate on social media during the early months of the pandemic [10,40]. On the other hand, findings from early COVID-19 scientific research were arguably important information sources of pandemic news.…”

“…Although self-enhancement motivation has been established in the context of the interpersonal sharing of professionally mediated science communication [ 8 ], the science behind the emerging phenomenon of sharing scientific findings about a novel infectious disease through large online social networks could be much more complex. On the one hand, the heightened situational uncertainty induced by the pandemic [ 39 ] could potentially lead to even stronger “negativity bias.” Recent studies found a heightened prevalence of negative emotions or a negative emotional climate on social media during the early months of the pandemic [ 10 , 40 ]. On the other hand, findings from early COVID-19 scientific research were arguably important information sources of pandemic news.…”

Psychological Wellbeing, Worry, and Resilience-Based Coping during COVID-19 in Relation to Sleep Quality

“…On the basis of past research, the current authors created a novel measure of psychological wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the current study’s research questions. The novel measure of psychological wellbeing contains 13 areas: (a) lifestyle and daily routines [ 16 ]; (b) general stress level [ 9 ]; (c) general sleep health beyond sleep quality [ 17 ]; (d) emotional health [ 18 ]; (e) physical health [ 19 ]; (f) sexual health [ 20 ]; (g) access to resources [ 21 ] such as food [ 22 ], toilet paper [ 23 ], cleaning supplies [ 24 ], heat [ 25 ], and electricity [ 26 ]; (h) job security [ 27 ]; (i) financial security [ 28 ]; (j) housing stability [ 29 ]; (k) sense of safety [ 30 ]; (l) sense of privacy [ 31 ]; and (m) sense of belonging to a social community [ 32 ]. These factors were selected because prior research has demonstrated their importance in contributing to psychological wellbeing.…”

What do people write about COVID-19 and teaching, publicly? Insulators and threats to newly habituated and institutionalized practices for instruction

“…(T2A23) Trust in government was found to be a theme in other studies, particularly when it came to covid vaccine acceptance [62]. However, there were negative responses in the literature that captured overall disappointment on national responses to the pandemic that echos the sentiment captured here [65].…”