Understanding the buffering effect of social media use on anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

Yousri Marzouki,Fatimah Salem Aldossari,Giuseppe A Veltri

doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00724-x

Yousri Marzouki, Fatimah Salem Aldossari + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00724-x

Copy DOI

Abstract

During the COVID-19 outbreak, lockdown measures have been deployed worldwide. In the wake of these measures, internet and social media use has reached unprecedented peaks. We hypothesize that social media can, in the context of the pandemic, be a placeholder for collective resilient processes modulated by cognitive and emotional components. An online survey (N = 1408) using a cross-sectional design was carried out over nine weeks from the beginning of March 2020 to the end of May 2020. The triangulation via SEM statistical modeling, text mining, and sentiment, discriminant, and entropy analyses revealed the granular functional role of social media use in promoting a positive perception towards stressors during the pandemic. This study provides an empirically tested theoretical framework to understand the evolution of buffering mechanisms of social media use as a result of collective resilience. Recommendations on social media use for future lockdown scenarios were provided.

Highlights

The ongoing pandemic of the COVID-19 virus, referred to as the coronavirus pandemic, is the major global health event of 2020
We have tested this relationship through a structural equation model where the three observed exogenous variables are supposed to be reflected by a latent variable that captures the following three dimensions of perception: social media use for social knowledge about the pandemic, self-perceived knowledge for the subjective knowledge of the users about the pandemic, and the perception of threat for the knowledge associated with death saliency and the estimation of the probability of death
This paper provides an understanding of the buffering role played by social media use as individuals and communities coped with the COVID-19 pandemic

Summary

Introduction

The ongoing pandemic of the COVID-19 virus, referred to as the coronavirus pandemic, is the major global health event of 2020. Existential risks, for Ord, are “new kinds of challenges. They require us to coordinate globally and intergenerationally, in ways that go beyond what we have achieved so far. They require foresight rather than trial and error. Since they allow no second chances, we need to build institutions to ensure that across our entire future we never once fall victim to such a catastrophe.”

Methods

Results

Conclusion