Social Media, Social Support, and Mental Health of Young Adults During COVID-19

Abstract

The current study examines the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health among young adults in the US, how they use social media and the social support they obtain from the online environment, and the effect on their mental health during stay-at-home orders. Our survey among 18-to-25-year-olds found that women and those uncertain of employment status due to the pandemic experienced elevated depression symptoms. The informational acquisition motive for using social media was positively associated with depression symptoms, and a higher level of online informational support contributed to increasing the symptoms. Young adults showed the lowest level of depression symptoms when they had a higher level of offline emotional support and a lower level of online informational support. Our survey stressed the importance of offline emotional support and reconfirmed that nothing can replace its value.

Mental Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of Women Receiving the Comprehensive Social Security Allowance in Hong Kong

“…Another significant predictor of mental distress during the pandemic was the level of social support perceived by the participants. Our findings suggest that greater social support may help address depressive and stress symptoms, as found both in the study of Liu et al [ 37 ] on a sample of the Chinese general population and in studies conducted in other countries [ 6 , 7 , 14 ]. However, although social support has been found to protect against anxiety during the pandemic [ 51 , 52 ], no significant effect was identified in this study.…”

“…Welfare recipients’ mental health needs during the pandemic have been largely omitted from the current literature. The literature exploring mental distress and its risk factors covers not only the general population but also a wide range of groups such as the elderly [ 12 ], pregnant women [ 13 ], young adults [ 14 ], homeless people [ 15 ], health workers [ 16 ], university students [ 8 ], low-income groups and immigrants [ 10 ]. To our knowledge, however, no mental health studies have focused on welfare recipients’ needs during the pandemic, perpetuating the public’s indifferent attitude toward this group [ 17 , 18 ] at least to a degree.…”

“…Social support has been suggested as another consistent predictor of mental health [ 6 , 7 , 14 ]. This concept refers to individuals’ perception of the coping assistance available to them from members of their social network, such as family, friends and significant others (e.g., colleagues) [ 32 ].…”

Social media use as a coping mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multidimensional perspective on adolescents' well-being

“…Alternatively, these results could be explained by depressive symptoms, with adolescents high in depressive symptoms being apathetic, thus having little interest in engaging in activities that would ordinarily interest them, be it that we refer to direct or virtual activities. A secondary line of explanation can be linked to the period of the data collection (fall of 2021, returning to school after a significant period of online schooling); at this point of the pandemic, we can talk of a potential decrease in the use of social media as a consequence of boardroom, fatigue associated to being only online and an overall reduction of interest in social media, as direct exposure to peers was again possible [similar results reported by Longest and Kang ( 79 )]. At the same time, the lack of significant correlations between depressive symptoms and the behavioral dimension of social media use may suggest that the association between the two variables could be weak, making it difficult to establish a causal relationship between them.…”

Unconditional self-acceptance among the psychology students of University X, Malaysia: the role of mattering, perceived social support and state self-esteem

“…In addition to that, recent research stated that reduced physical social interaction could increase young adults' social media usage during COVID-19 pandemic, thereby enhancing their social interaction motives [49]. As a result, it was indicated that the information-seeking process via social media platform does not only reduce uncertainty, but also allows them to feel more in control towards the perceived threats, when individuals accepted that things are out of personal control and started to accept themselves in a non-judgmental way, they believe that unexpected events, such as life crisis (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic) would not last.…”