scholarly journals Teens and social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: Staying socially connected while physically distant

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Hamilton ◽  
Jacqueline Nesi ◽  
Sophia Choukas-Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Adolescent Development ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the health, safety, and daily lives of all individuals. Adolescents may be uniquely sensitive to this abrupt disruption in their lives due to the biological and psychological changes that occur during this developmental period. Social media has rapidly transformed the ways in which adolescents socialize and interact with one another, which has contributed to an ongoing debate about whether social media is helping or harming teens today. The COVID-19 pandemic has only magnified this societal dilemma as teens are spending more time than ever before on social media. Thus, it is important for parents, educators, and teens to better understand social media use in the context of COVID-19. This article discusses the implications of social media for adolescent development and mental health in the context of COVID-19, with attention to the ways in which social media may be especially helpful for teens in the midst of physical distancing practices, as well as how social media behaviors can negatively impact teens’ physical and mental health during this time. Using research and theory, the article provides practical guidance on facilitating teens’ helpful use of social media and mitigating its negative effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. As more people than ever before are relying on social media to maintain social connection and ward off social isolation, this article may be useful for people of all ages who aim to understand the benefits and drawbacks of social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Screen Time, Social Media Use, and Adolescent Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 485-502
Author(s):  
Candice L. Odgers ◽  
Stephen M. Schueller ◽  
Mimi Ito
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Adolescent Development ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Positive Development ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Social And Emotional

Adolescents spend much of their daily lives online, and fears abound that digital technology use, and social media in particular, is harming their social and emotional development. Findings to date do not support causal or robust associations between social media use and adolescents’ development. Instead, prior studies have produced a mix of small positive, negative, and often null associations. The narrative around social media and adolescent development has been negative, but empirical support for the story of increasing deficits, disease, and disconnection is limited. This article reviews what is known about the association between social media use and adolescent social and emotional well-being, identifies key limitations in current research, and recommends ways to improve science while also minimizing risk and creating opportunities for positive development in an increasingly digital and uncertain age.

EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS ON STUDENT BEHAVIOR

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (45) ◽  
pp. 2284-2298
Author(s):  
İlker İnan LOKURLU ◽  
Yüksel GÜNDÜZ
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Social Media Tools ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The aim of the survey is to express the effects of social media tools on student‟s behavior.The research is a qualitative one designed with phenomenology method.The working group of the research consists of 25 branch teachers working in secondary schools in Bursa, Yıldırım district in the 2018-2019 academic year.Participants were selected by purposeful sampling method. A semi-structured interview form consisting of five questions prepared by the researchers was used to collect data in the study.In this context, teachers were asked what their opinions were on the effects of social media on student attitudes and behaviors, the effect of social media on students 'acquisition of bad habits, the effect of social media on students' expressing their thoughts freely, the effect of social media use on students 'academic achievement, and the effect of social media use on students' socialization. When the results of the research are investigated, 19 of the teachers participating in the research expressed that social media has a minus effect on student attitudes and behaviors, 5 have both positive and negative effects, also 1 have an assertive effect;24 of them stated that social media is effective in students' adopting poor habits, 1 of them has no effect;21 of them denoted that social media had an effect on students' expressing their thoughts freely, 4 of them had no effect;11 of them stated that the use of social media has a positive effect on the academic success of the student, 11 of them have a negative effect on academic success, 3 of them can have both positive and negative effects;11 of them stated that the use of social media has no effect on socialization of students, 8 of them stated that it has an effect, and 6 of them are undecided about this issue. Keywords: Social Media, Social Media Tools, Teacher, Student.

scholarly journals The link between mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of social media

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Test Period ◽  
False Information ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
A Priority ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The world was faced the extensive spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus. The COVID-19 crisis is a crisis of both physical and mental health. Proper mental health is crucial to the functioning of society at all times in every country and should be a priority and at the center of response and recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health and well-being - the well-being of society as a whole - have been severely compromised during the pandemic and are a priority for urgent consideration. In the qarantine period, the social media were important sourses of information. The aim of this study was to fi nd out the relation between social media use and stress together with anxiety during this pandemic of COVID-19. We are looking for trends of social media use and infl uence that on behavioral and mental disorders. This study was conducted with the help of an online based survey of individuals from a fi rst wave and during a second wave of pandemic in Ukraine. It was conducted to understand the relationship between social media and stress during the Covid-19 pandemic and to see dynamics of change. A total of 199 participants of the fi rst test period and 152 participants of a second test period responded to the survey which was conducted by snowballing sampling techniques in the convenient atmosphere. We applied two validated, self-reporting questionnaires namely Perceived Stress Scale and test of Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. When period of use of social media had increased during the pandemic, it led to an increase in the perception and dissemination of false information (fakes) that negative aff ected psychological well-being. Negative aspects of the use of social networks can aff ect the level of anxiety and stress of the population of our country. Among the respondents, 120 (34.2%) think that their mental health and wellbeing was being deteriorated during this period of pandemic. Total percentage 51.0% of the participants were suff ering from mild anxiety, 11.1% from moderate anxiety and 6.3% from severe anxiety The dissemination of false information in the context of increased search time has all the prerequisites for increasing the risk of deteriorating mental health in our country during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis of Twitter Data

10.2196/21418 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. e21418
Author(s):  
Danny Valdez ◽  
Marijn ten Thij ◽  
Krishna Bathina ◽  
Lauren A Rutter ◽  
Johan Bollen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
At Home

Background The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented mitigation efforts that disrupted the daily lives of millions. Beyond the general health repercussions of the pandemic itself, these measures also present a challenge to the world’s mental health and health care systems. Considering that traditional survey methods are time-consuming and expensive, we need timely and proactive data sources to respond to the rapidly evolving effects of health policy on our population’s mental health. Many people in the United States now use social media platforms such as Twitter to express the most minute details of their daily lives and social relations. This behavior is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering social media data a rich field to understand personal well-being. Objective This study aims to answer three research questions: (1) What themes emerge from a corpus of US tweets about COVID-19? (2) To what extent did social media use increase during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? and (3) Does sentiment change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Methods We analyzed 86,581,237 public domain English language US tweets collected from an open-access public repository in three steps. First, we characterized the evolution of hashtags over time using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Second, we increased the granularity of this analysis by downloading Twitter timelines of a large cohort of individuals (n=354,738) in 20 major US cities to assess changes in social media use. Finally, using this timeline data, we examined collective shifts in public mood in relation to evolving pandemic news cycles by analyzing the average daily sentiment of all timeline tweets with the Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner (VADER) tool. Results LDA topics generated in the early months of the data set corresponded to major COVID-19–specific events. However, as state and municipal governments began issuing stay-at-home orders, latent themes shifted toward US-related lifestyle changes rather than global pandemic-related events. Social media volume also increased significantly, peaking during stay-at-home mandates. Finally, VADER sentiment analysis scores of user timelines were initially high and stable but decreased significantly, and continuously, by late March. Conclusions Our findings underscore the negative effects of the pandemic on overall population sentiment. Increased use rates suggest that, for some, social media may be a coping mechanism to combat feelings of isolation related to long-term social distancing. However, in light of the documented negative effect of heavy social media use on mental health, social media may further exacerbate negative feelings in the long-term for many individuals. Thus, considering the overburdened US mental health care structure, these findings have important implications for ongoing mitigation efforts.

scholarly journals The Effects of Social Media Use on the Health of Older Adults: An Empirical Analysis Based on 2017 Chinese General Social Survey

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1143
Author(s):  
Liping Fu ◽  
Yu Xie
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
Media Use ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Chinese General Social Survey

An aging population and social informatization are currently the two main social phenomena affecting China. Under their influences, the real-life experiences of older adults are becoming more and more closely connected to the online world, and the influences of the Internet on healthy aging cannot be ignored. This work aimed to study whether Internet use had an effect on the physical and mental health of older adults, whether the effect was positive or negative, and whether its influence on physical and mental health was heterogeneous. In this study, data from the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) was used to analyze the effects of social media use on the physical and mental health of older adults. The results indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between social media use and the health of older adults. The correlation between social media use and mental health of older adults was more significant than physical health. These results could help us further study the effects of Internet use on the health of older adults.

scholarly journals Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Longitudinal Twitter Analysis (JANUARY-APRIL 2020)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny Valdez ◽  
Marijn ten Thij ◽  
Krishna Bathina ◽  
Lauren Alexandra Rutter ◽  
Johan Bollen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
Lifestyle Changes ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
At Home

ABSTRACTBackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented mitigation efforts that disrupted the daily lives of millions. Beyond the general health repercussions of the pandemic itself, these measures also present a significant challenge to the world’s mental health and healthcare systems. Considering traditional survey methods are time-consuming and expensive, we need timely and proactive data sources to respond to the rapidly evolving effects of health policy on our population’s mental health. Significant pluralities of the US population now use social media platforms, such as Twitter, to express the most minute details of their daily lives and social relations. This behavior is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering social media data a rich field from which to understand personal wellbeing.PurposeBroadly, this study answers three research questions: RQ1: What themes emerge from a corpus of US tweets about COVID-19?; RQ2: To what extent does social media use increase during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic?; and RQ3: Does sentiment change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic?MethodsWe analyzed 86,581,237 public domain English-language US tweets collected from an open-access public repository in three steps1. First, we characterized the evolution of hashtags over time using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Second, we increased the granularity of this analysis by downloading Twitter timelines of a large cohort of individuals (n = 354,738) in 20 major US cities to assess changes in social media use. Finally, using this timeline data, we examined collective shifts in public mood in relation to evolving pandemic news cycles by analyzing the average daily sentiment of all timeline tweets with the Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner (VADER) sentiment tool2.ResultsLDA topics generated in the early months of the dataset corresponded to major COVID-19 specific events. However, as state and municipal governments began issuing stay-at-home orders, latent themes shifted towards US-related lifestyle changes rather than global pandemic-related events. Social media volume also increased significantly, peaking during stay-at-home mandates. Finally, VADER sentiment analysis sentiment scores of user timelines were initially high and stable, but decreased significantly, and continuously, by late March.Discussion & ConclusionOur findings underscore the negative effects of the pandemic on overall population sentiment. Increased usage rates suggest that, for some, social media may be a coping mechanism to combat feelings of isolation related to long-term social distancing. However, in light of the documented negative effect of heavy social media usage on mental health, for many social media may further exacerbate negative feelings in the long-term. Thus, considering the overburdened US mental healthcare structure, these findings have important implications for ongoing mitigation efforts.

scholarly journals Central themes, core concepts and knowledge gaps concerning social media use, and mental health and well-being among adolescents: a protocol of a scoping review of published literature

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. e031105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor Schønning ◽  
Leif Edvard Aarø ◽  
Jens Christoffer Skogen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Knowledge Gaps ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Health And Well Being

IntroductionThe use of social media has risen steadily since its introduction in the early 2000s, and today there are between 2 and 3 billion users worldwide. Research on the link between use of social media and mental health has resulted in a vast number of studies covering diverse aspects of the link between them. The existing body of knowledge on use of social media, and mental health and well-being among adolescents is complex and difficult to follow. In this paper, we present a protocol for a scoping review to systematically identify and summarise the central research foci and knowledge gaps in the research field of social media use, and mental health and well-being among adolescents.Methods and analysisThe current scoping review will adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. The first step is to search relevant databases for eligible studies. Relevant databases are CINAHL, Ovid Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, Sociological Services Abstracts, ERIC, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CRD (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects), NHS EED, HTA and Epistemonikos. Next, two reviewers from the research team will independently screen the identified studies for eligibility. Data extraction and data synthesis will be performed and result in summarised themes based on the findings.Ethics and disseminationA scoping review can be described as a method of gaining an overview and understanding of a research area, with its strengths and weaknesses, and as it involves peer-reviewed and published articles, a scoping review does not require ethical approval. We expect that the results from the current scoping review will produce a consolidated overview of existing studies and research gaps, and gather this knowledge into a coherent review. The results will be disseminated through relevant journals and conferences.

scholarly journals Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis of Twitter Data (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny Valdez ◽  
Marijn ten Thij ◽  
Krishna Bathina ◽  
Lauren A Rutter ◽  
Johan Bollen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
At Home

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented mitigation efforts that disrupted the daily lives of millions. Beyond the general health repercussions of the pandemic itself, these measures also present a challenge to the world’s mental health and health care systems. Considering that traditional survey methods are time-consuming and expensive, we need timely and proactive data sources to respond to the rapidly evolving effects of health policy on our population’s mental health. Many people in the United States now use social media platforms such as Twitter to express the most minute details of their daily lives and social relations. This behavior is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering social media data a rich field to understand personal well-being. OBJECTIVE This study aims to answer three research questions: (1) What themes emerge from a corpus of US tweets about COVID-19? (2) To what extent did social media use increase during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? and (3) Does sentiment change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? METHODS We analyzed 86,581,237 public domain English language US tweets collected from an open-access public repository in three steps. First, we characterized the evolution of hashtags over time using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Second, we increased the granularity of this analysis by downloading Twitter timelines of a large cohort of individuals (n=354,738) in 20 major US cities to assess changes in social media use. Finally, using this timeline data, we examined collective shifts in public mood in relation to evolving pandemic news cycles by analyzing the average daily sentiment of all timeline tweets with the Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner (VADER) tool. RESULTS LDA topics generated in the early months of the data set corresponded to major COVID-19–specific events. However, as state and municipal governments began issuing stay-at-home orders, latent themes shifted toward US-related lifestyle changes rather than global pandemic-related events. Social media volume also increased significantly, peaking during stay-at-home mandates. Finally, VADER sentiment analysis scores of user timelines were initially high and stable but decreased significantly, and continuously, by late March. CONCLUSIONS Our findings underscore the negative effects of the pandemic on overall population sentiment. Increased use rates suggest that, for some, social media may be a coping mechanism to combat feelings of isolation related to long-term social distancing. However, in light of the documented negative effect of heavy social media use on mental health, social media may further exacerbate negative feelings in the long-term for many individuals. Thus, considering the overburdened US mental health care structure, these findings have important implications for ongoing mitigation efforts.

Social Media Use and Students’ Health-Lifestyle Modification in University of Calabar, Nigeria

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Ntongha Eni Ikpi ◽  
Veronica Akwenabuaye Undelikwo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Lifestyle Modification ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Positive Health ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Health Lifestyle ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The use of social media platforms has over the years become a veritable tool for individuals, groups, institutions and corporate bodies for the promotion of health and wellness. In recent times, social media has become one of the most potent agents of the media through which health issues are addressed as well as generated and disseminated to different populations in society. The study was conducted to examine social media use and students’ health lifestyle modification in the University of Calabar, Nigeria. It sought to determine the extent to which students’ use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp) influences the modification of their health-related lifestyles such as eating habits, sexual behaviour, cigarette and alcohol consumption, drug use and the engagement in fitness activities. The study adopted a randomized descriptive survey design and used a sample of 300 undergraduate students. The questionnaire was the main instrument used for collection of data while simple percentages and means were used to determine the difference between the expected mean of 2.50 and the observed means across various items in the questionnaire. The results showed that apart from Twitter, social media use by University of Calabar students has significantly influenced the modification of their health lifestyles. Since social media has become a veritable tool for the promotion of positive health lifestyle, effort should be made by government through the health sector to create more awareness among students and the entire population of social media users, on the health benefits accruing from use of social media.

Social Media Use in College-age Youth: A Comprehensive Review and a Call to Action

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-143
Author(s):  
Hilary Holmes ◽  
Alba E. Lara ◽  
Gregory S. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Health Awareness ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
College Age ◽  
Mental Health Awareness ◽  
Privacy Breaches

Background: Social media is a relatively new and impactful way to connect millions of people around the world. The intersection of mental health and social media is a poorly studied, yet important area of research. Specifically, with regard to college-aged youth, social media can potentially offer an educational tool to enhance mental health awareness or augment treatment when it is used for professional purposes by mental health advocates or healthcare professionals. There is also the added risk of disinformation, cyberbullying, and privacy breaches. Objective: This review aims to assess the current state of social media use and its influence on mental health, especially in college-age youth. Methods: The authors of this paper utilized PubMed and Medline databases to review the most recent experimental studies and literature reviews available on the topic of mental health and social media. Results: Abstracts and relevant papers were read in full, and information from these studies was cited accordingly. Conclusion: The authors conclude that although more research needs to be conducted, social media may offer benefits for mental health awareness, education, and treatment, specifically in populations such as college-age youth.

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