Abstract
In spring 2020, COVID-19 and the ensuing social distancing and stay-at-home orders instigated abrupt changes to employment and educational infrastructure, leading to uncertainty, concern, and stress among United States college students. The media consumption patterns of this and other social groups across the globe were affected, with early evidence suggesting viewers were seeking both pandemic-themed media and reassuring, familiar content. A general increase in media consumption, and increased consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to media use for coping strategies. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. We examine links between specific types of media use with psychological well-being concepts, and examine the moderating roles of traits (hope, optimism, and resilience) as buffers against negative relationships between stress and anxiety and psychological well-being. Our findings indicate that stress was linked to more hedonic and less eudaimonic media use, as well as more avoidant and escapist media-based coping. Anxiety, on the other hand, was linked to more media use in general, specifically more eudaimonic media use and a full range of media-based coping strategies. In turn, escapist media was linked to negative affect, while reframing media and eudaimonic media were linked to positive affect. Avoidant coping was tied to poorer mental health, and humor coping was tied to better mental health. Hedonic and need-satisfying media use were linked to more flourishing. Hope, optimism, and resilience were all predictive of media use, with the latter two traits moderating responses to stress and anxiety. The findings give a nuanced portrait of college students’ media use during a pandemic-induced shutdown, showing that media use is closely intertwined with well-being in both adaptive and maladaptive patterns.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Lara Nikola Wolfers, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM), Germany Lisa Perks, Merrimack College, United States
We find that stress is associated with more hedonic media use and less eudaimonic media use
We found that escapist coping via media was associated with less positive affect, and avoidant coping with lower mental health scores
Summary
Reviewed by: Lara Nikola Wolfers, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM), Germany Lisa Perks, Merrimack College, United States. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 concerns drove American universities to cancel face-to-face classes, which resulted in millions of residential college students leaving campus midsemester with no plan to return (Hess, 2020) This decision led to uncertainty, concern, and stress for students, as they were urged to remain sequestered in their primary residences. Popular press articles suggested that viewers were either seeking out pandemic-themed media (Sutton, 2020) or turning to reassuring, familiar content (MRC Data, 2020) This increase in media consumption, or the consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to the use of media as a coping strategy to deal with stress and anxiety experienced during the initial social distancing period. We further associate specific media coping factors with psychological well-being outcomes, and examine the moderating factors of trait hope, optimism, and resilience as buffers against negative outcomes from psychological stress during the pandemic
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