Abstract
People often seek out information as a means of coping with challenging situations. Attuning to negative information can be adaptive because it alerts people to the risks in their environment, thereby preparing them for similar threats in the future. But is this behaviour adaptive during a pandemic when bad news is ubiquitous? We examine the emotional consequences of exposure to brief snippets of COVID-related news via a Twitter feed (Study 1), or a YouTube reaction video (Study 2). Compared to a no-information exposure group, consumption of just 2-4 minutes of COVID-related news led to immediate and significant reductions in positive affect (Studies 1 and 2) and optimism (Study 2). Exposure to COVID-related kind acts did not have the same negative consequences, suggesting that not all social media exposure is detrimental for well-being. We discuss strategies to counteract the negative emotional consequences of exposure to negative news on social media.
Highlights
Stories about COVID-19 have dominated the news and have been shared widely on social media since early 2020, when COVID was labelled a pandemic by the World Health Organization
Individuals who reported spending more time consulting COVID-related news each day reported higher levels of anxiety, distress, stress, and depression. These findings align with a large cross-sectional study of over 6,300 Americans conducted in March 2020 which found that people spent on average 55 minutes each day on social media and were seeking COVID-19 related information through various traditional news sources as well [13]
We examined the emotional consequences of brief exposure to authentic COVID-related information on two social media platforms: Twitter (Study 1) and YouTube (Study 2)
Summary
Stories about COVID-19 have dominated the news and have been shared widely on social media since early 2020, when COVID was labelled a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Individuals who reported spending more time consulting COVID-related news each day reported higher levels of anxiety, distress, stress, and depression These findings align with a large cross-sectional study of over 6,300 Americans conducted in March 2020 which found that people spent on average 55 minutes each day on social media and were seeking COVID-19 related information through various traditional news sources as well [13]. We originally hypothesized that reading about COVID-related acts of kindness would avoid the adverse impacts of exposure to COVID information, but have a positive effect on mood compared to the no information control condition This hypothesis was not supported, perhaps because it is not possible for people to separate the positivity of kind acts from the negative context that inspired them. The pre-registration, materials, data and analysis script for this study can be found on the OSF (https://osf.io/5ya9m/?view_only=13a1cf936373404698d94d3a0963ed2b)
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