The Effect of Social Media on Stress among Young Adults during COVID-19 Pandemic: Taking into Account Fatalism and Social Media Exhaustion

Ngien, Annabel; Jiang, Shaohai

doi:10.1080/10410236.2021.1888438

Cited by 63 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…And moreover, the data also show that optimistic media messaging can reduce feelings of depression by reducing fatalism toward the COVID-19 pandemic. Ngien and Jiang (2021) observed similar results showing that social media use reduced pandemic stress by virtue of reducing feelings of fatalism. Thus, the mental well-being of people who consume media related to the pandemic may hinge in part upon the extent to which the message makes them feel fatalistic (vs. powerful and effective) toward the virus.…”

Section: Implications For Mental Healthsupporting

confidence: 57%

“…Studies suggests that at least some of the mental distress triggered by the pandemic stems from feelings of fatalism toward COVID-19. Specifically, Ngien and Jiang (2021) found that COVID-19 fatalism was positively associated with stress among Chinese youth, and Bogolyubova et al (2021) found that fatalism predicted post-traumatic stress symptoms in an international sample. In the current study, we found that fatalism toward COVID-19 was positively associated with depression.…”

Section: Implications For Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fatalism in the Early Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Mitigation and Mental Health

Hayes

Clerk

2021

Front. Psychol.

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This research assessed fatalism toward COVID-19 and its role in behavioral intentions to support mitigation efforts (e. g., social distancing) and mental well-being. A COVID-19 fatalism measure was developed, and a messaging manipulation (fatalistic vs. optimistic vs. no message) was created to examine causal links between fatalism scores. Support for mitigation efforts and negative affect (anxiety, fear, depression, and insecurity) were measured to examine the consequences of fatalism toward COVID-19. Results showed that the fatalistic messaging condition increased fatalism whereas the optimistic message reduced it. The effects of the messaging manipulation were also apparent in the downstream measures of support for mitigation and negative affect through the mediator of fatalism toward COVID-19. Specifically, fatalism negatively predicted intentions to support mitigation. Regarding mental health, fatalism was positively associated with depression but negatively associated with fear and insecurity. Implications for COVID-19 mitigation efforts and mental health in the face of the coronavirus pandemic are discussed.

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Section: Implications For Mental Healthsupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: Implications For Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fatalism in the Early Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Mitigation and Mental Health

Hayes

Clerk

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…At the same time, they also enable the growth of public contestation of expert authority, and the rise of social media has driven us to a new level of information dissemination, which is faster and less controlled than ever before. One outcome of this is the massive circulation of an indiscriminate panoply of views, which produces confusion and, importantly, fatigue [9], a phenomenon that was found to be particularly acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, with grave consequences for people's health [38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Claiming Credibility in Online Comments: Popular Debate Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Breeze

2021

Publications

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At times of crisis, access to information takes on special importance, and in the Internet age of constant connectedness, this is truer than ever. Over the course of the pandemic, the huge public demand for constantly updated health information has been met with a massive response from official and scientific sources, as well as from the mainstream media. However, it has also generated a vast stream of user-generated digital postings. Such phenomena are often regarded as unhelpful or even dangerous since they unwittingly spread misinformation or make it easier for potentially harmful disinformation to circulate. However, little is known about the dynamics of such forums or how scientific issues are represented there. To address this knowledge gap, this chapter uses a corpus-assisted discourse approach to examine how “expert” knowledge and other sources of authority are represented and contested in a corpus of 10,880 reader comments responding to Mail Online articles on the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in February–July 2020. The results show how “expert” knowledge is increasingly problematized and politicized, while other strategies are used to claim authority. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of sociological theories, and some tentative solutions are proposed.

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“…Empirical research has shown that social media are critical for seeking and sharing health information, obtaining support, and making health decisions [ 27 ]. For example, Ngien and Jiang (2021) [ 28 ] recently surveyed a sample of young adults during the pandemic and found that social media use can alleviate individual stress by reducing the sense of uncertainty and fatalism through information sharing and mutual support. Schønning et al’s (2020) [ 29 ] systematic review study suggests that social media use, particularly the frequency and duration, is related to various aspects of psychological wellbeing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teens’ Social Media Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Time Series Examination of Posting and Emotion on Reddit

Zhang

Liu

Li³

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Research has rarely examined how the COVID-19 pandemic may affect teens’ social media engagement and psychological wellbeing, and even less research has compared the difference between teens with and without mental health concerns. We collected and analyzed weekly data from January to December 2020 from teens in four Reddit communities (subreddits), including teens in r/Teenagers and teens who participated in three mental health subreddits (r/Depression, r/Anxiety, and r/SuicideWatch). The results showed that teens’ weekly subreddit participation, posting/commenting frequency, and emotion expression were related to significant pandemic events. Teen Redditors on r/Teenagers had a higher posting/commenting frequency but lower negative emotion than teen Redditors on the three mental health subreddits. When comparing posts/comments on r/Teenagers, teens who ever visited one of the three mental health subreddits posted/commented twice as frequently as teens who did not, but their emotion expression was similar. The results from the Interrupted Time Series Analysis (ITSA) indicated that both teens with and without mental health concerns reversed the trend in posting frequency and negative emotion from declining to increasing right after the pandemic outbreak, and teens with mental health concerns had a more rapidly increasing trend in posting/commenting. The findings suggest that teens’ social media engagement and emotion expression reflect the pandemic evolution. Teens with mental health concerns are more likely to reveal their emotions on specialized mental health subreddits rather than on the general r/Teenagers subreddit. In addition, the findings indicated that teens with mental health concerns had a strong social interaction desire that various barriers in the real world may inhibit. The findings call for more attention to understand the pandemic’s influence on teens by monitoring and analyzing social media data and offering adequate support to teens regarding their mental health wellbeing.

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The Effect of Social Media on Stress among Young Adults during COVID-19 Pandemic: Taking into Account Fatalism and Social Media Exhaustion

Cited by 63 publications

References 46 publications

Fatalism in the Early Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Mitigation and Mental Health

Fatalism in the Early Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Mitigation and Mental Health

Claiming Credibility in Online Comments: Popular Debate Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Teens’ Social Media Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Time Series Examination of Posting and Emotion on Reddit

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