Until the shaken snowglobe settles: Feeling unsettled when using social media during COVID-19

Abstract

Previous research establishing the connection between social media and well-being is particularly relevant in light of findings of increased social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic. While research has fairly consistently established a relationship between media use, anxiety, depression and other indices of well-being, it has been less consistent in tying these variations to technology and user related factors. Researchers advocating for the interdependence of these factors suggest that the way users attune to the medium is decisive regarding its meaning for the user. Taking up the call for research to explore the dynamic interplay between users and technology and its relationship to well-being, we adopted a phenomenological approach using a reflexive thematic analysis method to highlight our participants’ concerns when using and engaging with social media during COVID-19. Specifically, we illuminate how participants are attuning to social media such that they experience it unsettlingly. Results revealed being unsettled during COVID-19 in the face of social media comprises three distinct movements: rupture, recollection, and resolution. Being unsettled emerges when an individual is experientially efficaciously detached from the past and its future instead engulfed in an encompassing and expanding now that is unclear and ambiguous. These results shed light on the inconsistencies found in previous literature and the importance of an experiential dimension in psychological research.