Abstract
BackgroundAs of May 9, 2021, the United States had 32.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 (20.7% of confirmed cases worldwide) and 580,000 deaths (17.7% of deaths worldwide). Early on in the pandemic, widespread social, financial, and mental insecurities led to extreme and irrational coping behaviors, such as panic buying. However, despite the consistent spread of COVID-19 transmission, the public began to violate public safety measures as the pandemic got worse.ObjectiveIn this work, we examine the effect of fear-inducing news articles on people’s expression of anxiety on Twitter. Additionally, we investigate desensitization to fear-inducing health news over time, despite the steadily rising COVID-19 death toll.MethodsThis study examined the anxiety levels in news articles (n=1465) and corresponding user tweets containing “COVID,” “COVID-19,” “pandemic,” and “coronavirus” over 11 months, then correlated that information with the death toll of COVID-19 in the United States.ResultsOverall, tweets that shared links to anxious articles were more likely to be anxious (odds ratio [OR] 2.65, 95% CI 1.58-4.43, P<.001). These odds decreased (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.2-0.83, P=.01) when the death toll reached the third quartile and fourth quartile (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21-0.85, P=.01). However, user tweet anxiety rose rapidly with articles when the death toll was low and then decreased in the third quartile of deaths (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.37-1.01, P=.06). As predicted, in addition to the increasing death toll being matched by a lower level of article anxiety, the extent to which article anxiety elicited user tweet anxiety decreased when the death count reached the second quartile.ConclusionsThe level of anxiety in users’ tweets increased sharply in response to article anxiety early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the casualty count climbed, news articles seemingly lost their ability to elicit anxiety among readers. Desensitization offers an explanation for why the increased threat is not eliciting widespread behavioral compliance with guidance from public health officials. This work investigated how individuals' emotional reactions to news of the COVID-19 pandemic manifest as the death toll increases. Findings suggest individuals became desensitized to the increased COVID-19 threat and their emotional responses were blunted over time.
Highlights
BackgroundThe COVID-19 outbreak has spread worldwide, affecting most countries
Results suggest that as the death toll increased over time, the baseline level of anxiety lexicon words in articles decreased; this was evidenced by our finding that when the pandemic’s severity and threat increased, individuals shared less news coverage containing COVID-19 anxiety words
When assessing the odds of a tweet having no anxiety versus anxiety, we found that the baseline odds of not having anxiety in a tweet were 0.11; the odds of having anxiety in a tweet increased with each unit increase in anxiety within an article
Summary
BackgroundThe COVID-19 outbreak has spread worldwide, affecting most countries. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of confirmed cases and the death toll have steadily risen. Among the countries affected by COVID-19, the United States has had 32.7 million cases (23.5% of confirmed cases worldwide) and 580,000 deaths (17.7% of deaths worldwide). Throughout the pandemic, the public became desensitized to reports of COVID-19’s health threat, and the rising number of confirmed cases and death toll began to lose impact [6,7]. We investigate desensitization to fear-inducing health news over time, despite the steadily rising COVID-19 death toll. Methods: This study examined the anxiety levels in news articles (n=1465) and corresponding user tweets containing “COVID,” “COVID-19,” “pandemic,” and “coronavirus” over 11 months, correlated that information with the death toll of COVID-19 in the United States. Findings suggest individuals became desensitized to the increased COVID-19 threat and their emotional responses were blunted over time
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