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

Saijun Zhang,Yeefay Li,Jae Eun Chung,Meirong Liu

doi:10.3390/ijerph181910079

Abstract

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.

Highlights

The weekly participants on the r/Teenagers subreddit had increased since week seven and spiked in week 11. These changes corresponded to the US declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency, many passengers on a California cruise ship being tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, and the US declaration of it as a national emergency
The study is rare because it compares social media engagement in the same online community between teens with and without mental health concerns
The findings indicate that teens’ posting activities and emotions fluctuated along with the pandemic evolution, and there was a discrepancy between teens with and without mental health concerns

Summary

Introduction

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in about 228 million infected cases and 4.7 million deaths [1]. The pandemic has compromised the economy and altered people’s lifestyles due to lockdowns and various safety measures and impaired people’s psychological wellbeing [2]. Teens may be especially vulnerable to the impact because they are in a developmental stage that is sensitive to environmental stress [3]. Teens are characterized by prevalent depression and anxiety and are at a high risk of suicidality, and the pandemic has elevated these risks [4,5]. Social media has become an integral part of teens’ daily life [6]. Social media use has become even more pronounced during the pandemic because of heightened concerns and

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Conclusion