Digital community assets: Investigating the impact of online engagement with arts and peer support groups on mental health during COVID-19.

Abstract

The digitisation of mental health support has accelerated since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the impact of digital engagement with community assets on mental health during COVID-19. Digital engagement is typically not location-bound, but the restricted movement enforced during 'lockdowns' meant that people were primarily accessing digital community assets from their home environments. We report findings from a study utilising two creative workshops and semi-structured interviews to investigate how support operates in and through three digital community assets; an online peer support forum, a social enterprise running regular creative challenges nationally via social media and a local in-person creative arts support group. The concept of 'more or less digital' captures the ways that people's experiences of digital community assets extend beyond the platforms to incorporate settings of use. The analysis identifies how support is diluted through digital engagement, the value of minimal and muted forms of engagement and user-led designs for future hybrid forms of support. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of analysing digital community asset engagement in the settings of use and how such knowledge is vital for planning support in a future under continual pressure to be increasingly digital.