Social Media Use and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moderator Role of Disaster Stressor and Mediator Role of Negative Affect
Zhao N, Zhou G
Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 140 citations
How it was studied
- Design
- Cross-sectional study (classified by our AI screen)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- Health markers and function
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- Nonprofit
- New Sunshine Charity Foundation
Based on 1 listed funder(s).
Publication
- Published
- 2020-09-17 · Appl Psychol Health Well Being · vol. 12 · issue 4 · pp. 1019–1038
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Cited
- 328 citations · more than 99% of similar papers · 18.6× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 57 works
- Access
- Free to read
- Research areas
- COVID-19 and Mental Health · Mental Health via Writing · Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- social media use, mental health, COVID-19 pandemic, negative affect, secondary traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, university students, mediation
- MeSH
- humans, depression, stress, psychological, affect, anxiety, stress disorders, traumatic, disasters, adult, female, male, young adult, social media, online social networking, covid-19
2 authors
From CN
- Nan ZhaoPeking University
- Guangyu Zhou · correspondingPeking University
Abstract
Background
Informed by the differential susceptibility to media effects model (DSMM), the current study aims to investigate associations of COVID-19-related social media use with mental health outcomes and to uncover potential mechanisms underlying the links.
Methods
A sample of 512 (62.5% women; Mage = 22.12 years, SD = 2.47) Chinese college students participated in this study from 24 March to 1 April 2020 via online questionnaire. They completed measures of social media use, the COVID-19 stressor, negative affect, secondary traumatic stress (STS), depression, and anxiety as well as covariates.
Results
As expected, results from regression analyses indicated that a higher level of social media use was associated with worse mental health. More exposure to disaster news via social media was associated with greater depression for participants with high (but not low) levels of the disaster stressor. Moreover, path analysis showed negative affect mediated the relationship of social media use and mental health.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that the disaster stressor may be a risk factor that amplifies the deleterious impact of social media use on depression. In addition, excessive exposure to disaster on social media may trigger negative affect, which may in turn contribute to mental health problems. Future interventions to improve mental health should consider elements of both disaster stressor and negative affect.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher.
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