Social Media and Emotional Burnout Regulation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multilevel Approach

The use of multilevel emotion regulation strategies in the context of critical public events: the more the better?

Critical public events, like COVID-19, significantly impact individuals' emotional and mental health. People tend to use multi-level emotion regulation strategies (intrapersonal, interpersonal and hyper-personal) to cope with these events, resulting in various strategy profiles. However, few studies have examined ER strategies from a multilevel perspective. Therefore, this study examines the use of multi-level strategies during COVID-19, and evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies, with a particular interest in identifying strategy profiles promoting mental health. We conducted a two-wave study (an interval of 1 week) using online questionnaires during COVID-19, with an initial sample of 1,189 participants and 895 samples completing the surveys across the two waves. Cross-lagged analysis indicated that experiential avoidance was reciprocally positively related to negative emotions while perspective-taking and humorous-meme-saving were reciprocally positively related to life satisfaction or positive emotions over time. Cluster analysis suggested that there were 9 different profiles which scored differently on mental health indicators. Specifically, the use of multi-level strategies tended to be associated with greater positive emotions and life satisfaction while with lower negative emotions and loneliness. This study revealed that the use of multi-level strategies plays a protective role in mental health when facing critical public events. These findings expanded our understanding of how multilevel emotion regulation strategies impact mental health during critical public events and identify protective profiles for mental health.

Retrospecting Digital Media Use, Negative Emotions, and Trust Gaps During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: Cross-Sectional Web-Based Survey

BACKGROUND

Retrospecting the trust gaps and their dynamics during the pandemic is crucial for understanding the root causes of postpandemic challenges and offers valuable insights into preparing for future public health emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic eroded people's trust in strangers and acquaintances, while their trust in family members remained relatively stable. This resulted in 2 trust gaps, namely, the family members-strangers trust gap and the family members-acquaintances trust gap. Widening trust gaps impede social integration and undermine the effective management of public health crises. However, little is known about how digital media use shaped trust gaps during a pandemic.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to investigate the relationships between digital media use, negative emotions, the family members-strangers trust gap, and the family members-acquaintances trust gap during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. We test the mediating role of negative emotions between digital media use and 2 trust gaps and compare the indirect effect of digital media use on 2 trust gaps through negative emotions.

METHODS

A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted in China between January 31, 2020, and February 9, 2020. A total of 1568 adults participated in the survey. Questions related to digital media use, negative emotions, trust in family members, trust in acquaintances, and trust in strangers during the pandemic were asked. Regression analyses were performed to test the associations between the examined variables. We used a 95% bootstrap CI approach to estimate the mediation effects.

RESULTS

Digital media use was positively associated with negative emotions (B=0.17, SE 0.03; P<.001), which in turn were positively associated with the family members-strangers trust gap (B=0.15, SE 0.03; P<.001). Likewise, digital media use was positively associated with negative emotions (B=0.17, SE 0.03; P<.001), while negative emotions were positively associated with the family members-acquaintances trust gap (B=0.08, SE 0.03; P=.01). Moreover, the indirect effect of digital media use on the family members-strangers trust gap (B=0.03, SE 0.01; 95% CI 0.01-0.04) was stronger than that on the family members-acquaintances trust gap (B=0.01, SE 0.01; 95% CI 0.003-0.027).

CONCLUSIONS

The results demonstrate that negative emotions resulting from the frequent use of digital media are a key factor that accounts for the widening trust gaps. Considering the increasing reliance on digital media, the findings indicate that the appropriate use of digital media can prevent the overamplification of negative emotions and curb the enlargement of trust gaps. This may help restore social trust and prepare for future public health crises in the postpandemic era.

The association between social media use and well-being during quarantine period: testing a moderated mediation model

Objectives

Social media use (SMU) increased dramatically during COVID-19 due to policies such as long-term quarantine. Given that SMU has complex effects on individuals' well-being, this study aimed to explore the relationship between SMU and subjective well-being and the influencing factors in the context of the pandemic in China.

Methods

A total of 895 adults (413 males) in different risk areas across China participated in this study. They provided self-reported data on subjective well-being, social media use, adaptive humor, and other demographic variables.

Results

It revealed that SMU was positively associated with individual well-being, an effect partially mediated by the score of adaptive humor. Furthermore, the effect of SMU on adaptive humor was moderated by trait optimism, with the effect more robust in high (vs. low) optimistic individuals.

Conclusion

This study explored the positive effects of SMU on individuals' well-being, suggesting that individuals may better cope with negative experiences and maintain well-being under quarantine by showing more adaptive humor on social media.

Innovation in manufacturing SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic: How does environmental dynamism reinforce employee proactive behavior?

In a turbulent environment such as during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, employee proactive behavior is imperative for innovation initiatives in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We ask whether and how turbulent environments motivate employees to proactively engage in innovative behavior. This study argues that employees' perceptions of environmental dynamism reinforce employee proactive innovation behavior. Using a sample comprising 262 innovative employees from 40 manufacturing SMEs in Taiwan, this study tests a moderated-mediation model in which environmental dynamism is expected to increase the indirect effect of creative self-efficacy on employee innovative behavior through knowledge acquisition. The results confirm the mediating role of knowledge acquisition and the positive moderating effect of environmental dynamism. This study sheds light on the issue of employee proactive behavior in response to changing environments.

How are the youth? A brief-longitudinal study on symptoms, alexithymia and expressive suppression among Italian adolescents during COVID-19 pandemic

Studies documented the negative consequences on adolescents' mental health of the stay-at-home measures adopted in reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, few contributions focused on the psychopathological trajectories after the end of these stressful measures or investigated the moderating role of this context in the relationship linking psychological symptoms with emotion regulation. This brief longitudinal study was performed with two measurement times: during the severe lockdown (T1), and when the restrictive measures were relaxed (T2). Ninety-three community adolescents (45% boys; Mage  = 14.94 years, SD = 1.64) completed the Youth Self Report, the Social Media Disorder Scale, the Binge Eating Scale, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale 20 items. Except for binge eating and externalising symptoms, all variables significantly decreased between T1 and T2. The relationship between expressive suppression and binge eating scores significantly decreased across time whereas the link between alexithymia and internalising symptoms increased with time. The study supported the idea that low-risk adolescents experienced psychological relief from the relaxation of stay-at-home measures. Results suggest the importance of considering contextual factors when explaining the role of expressive suppression and alexithymia in binge eating and internalising symptoms among adolescents.

Exploring Stress Mindset and Perceived Stress between College Student-Athletes and Non-Athletes

One's beliefs about the nature of stress (e.g., stress mindset) play a large role in the extent to which one experiences the detrimental or beneficial outcomes of stress. Stress mindset has been explored in college students, but there is limited research on stress mindsets in student-athletes. Sport can serve as a buffer to the negative impacts of stress for some student-athletes; however, pressures associated with sport participation increase stress in other student-athletes. Therefore, the purpose was to examine potential differences in stress mindset and perceived stress between non-athletes and college student-athletes. We hypothesized college student-athletes would report higher stress mindset scores but lower perceived stress scores. A total of 272 students (n = 87 student-athletes; n = 185 non-athletes) completed a demographic questionnaire, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Stress Mindset Measure via an online survey. No significant differences were observed between student-athletes' and non-athletes' stress mindset scores; however, significant differences were observed between student-athletes' and non-athletes' perceived stress. Thus, student-athletes and non-athletes shared a similar view of stress, but student-athletes reported a lower level of perceived stress than non-athletes. While there appears to be no statistically significant differences in stress mindset between college non-athletes and student-athletes, both groups reported holding a stress-is-debilitating mindset. Implications for practitioners working with the college population are discussed.

Resilience and Wellbeing Strategies for Pandemic Fatigue in Times of Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is truly one of the greatest collective health crises in history which have altered our life and living. For years, people have felt fatigued from following public health directives such as social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands frequently, and working or studying remotely without in-person interactions. In this paper, we explore strategies for resilience and wellbeing which can mitigate pandemic-caused stress and behavioural fatigue. We start with individual level strategies including reworking stress appraisals, the importance of psychological flexibility, reducing loneliness through adaptive online platform use, optimizing familial relationships when living in close quarters for a prolonged period, reducing symptoms of burnout and using adaptive distractions, using specific evidence-based resilience strategies. We discuss specific considerations which tap on our shared identities and shared responsibilities which can enhance a sense of community, especially for individuals from marginalized backgrounds and how suicide risks can be minimized.

How Social Media Influences Public Attitudes to COVID-19 Governance Policy: An Analysis Based on Cognitive-Affective Model

Introduction

Based on the cognitive-affective model, this paper examines how social media affects the public cognitive and affective factors, further influence their attitudes towards COVID-19 governance policy.

Methods

Through an online survey, we measured individual COVID-19 policy attitude, social media use and other related factors of 1222 respondents from 12 countries, and based on this, we carried out regression and mediation analysis on the data to obtain the research results.

Results

From the perspective of cognitive factors, the public perception of the severity of the COVID-19 itself does not significantly affect their attitudes towards governance policy. On the contrary, the evaluation on government governance performance, risks and governance anticipations have more significant impacts. Among the affective factors, personal anxiety and patriotism significantly affect the formation of public attitudes, personal anxiety is positively correlated, and patriotism is negatively correlated. It is important to note that nationalism has no significant influence on public attitudes to COVID-19 policy on a global scale.

Conclusion

(1) Social media influences the public COVID-19 policy attitudes through their moderating effect on affective and cognitive factors. (2) The impact of social media on affective pathways is more significant than that on cognitive pathways. (3) The positive moderating effect of social media on patriotism obscures the tendency of strict governance of COVID-19 caused by aggravating people’s anxiety.

Evolutionary Game—Theoretic Approach for Analyzing User Privacy Disclosure Behavior in Online Health Communities

Privacy disclosure is one of the most common user information behaviors in online health communities. Under the premise of implementing privacy protection strategies in online health communities, promoting user privacy disclosure behavior can result in a “win–win” scenario for users and online health communities. Combining the real situation and evolutionary game theory, in this study, we first constructed an evolutionary game model of privacy disclosure behavior with users and online health communities as the main participants. Then, we solved the replication dynamic equations for both parties and analyzed the evolutionary stable strategies (ESSs) in different scenarios. Finally, we adopted MATLAB for numerical simulations to verify the accuracy of the model. Studies show that: (1) factors such as medical service support and community rewards that users receive after disclosing their private personal information affect user game strategy; and (2) the additional costs of the online health communities implementing the “positive protection” strategy and the expected loss related to the privacy leakage risk affect the online health communities’ game strategy. In this regard, this paper puts forward the following suggestions in order to optimize the benefits of both sets of participants: the explicit benefits of users should be improved, the internal environment of the communities should be optimized, the additional costs of the “positive protection” strategy should be reduced, and penalties for privacy leakages should be increased.

The Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Youth Mental Health: A Narrative Review

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has affected the physical health, psychological wellbeing, and mental health of the whole population. Young people are among those most at risk of developing mental health symptoms or disorders related to the pandemic. Purpose: the present narrative review is aimed at providing an updated overview of the current literature concerning the psychological impact of the SARS-CoV-2 infection but also of the COVID-19 outbreak, environmental restriction, and social distancing on mental health outcomes among the youth population aged between 15 and 25 years. Methods: in December 2021, an electronic search on this topic was performed on PubMed. Relevant publications from January 2020 until December 2021 were included. Findings: 53 cross-sectional studies, 26 longitudinal studies, 4 ecological studies, 1 qualitative study, and 1 systematic review were included. We found many methodological limitations in the studies included, especially poor choice of study samples and short follow-ups. Little literature was in support of a strong relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and consequences on youth mental health. On the contrary, many studies showed how extraordinary measures to limit the spread of the virus have impacted young people in terms of onset of new mental disorders and symptoms, suicidality, and access to emergency psychiatric services. Depressive and anxiety symptoms and disorders show the greatest increase in incidence, especially in girls and young women. Conclusions: it seems important to pay attention to the mental health of young people in relation to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, studies with more robust methodologies and longer follow-ups are needed to establish precise indications for targeted interventions in this context.

Factors Associated with Emotion Regulation in Men with Internet Access Living in Brazil during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: to evaluate the factors associated with emotion regulation in men with internet access living in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: an epidemiological survey, conducted with 1015 men. An electronic form was applied containing sociodemographic and occupational characteristics, support and coping strategies, as well as emotional and behavioral aspects. Emotion regulation was assessed using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Results: The prevalence values observed were 44.6% for Low Cognitive Reappraisal and of 47.1% for High Emotional Suppression. The following factors were identified as associated: (a) with Low Cognitive Reappraisal: being aged 30 years old or more, practicing physical activity, worrying about social distancing and having positive emotions and feelings; and (b) with High Emotional Suppression: being heterosexual, non-white race/skin color, having security support or public administration, not sanitizing food, worrying about lack of physical activity and not having negative emotions. Conclusion: the adoption of emotion regulation strategies was associated with individual, contextual and emotional/behavioral characteristics. Masculinity ideals seem to exert an influence on these relationships.

Accessibility to Digital Mental Health Services among the General Public throughout COVID-19: Trajectories, Influencing Factors and Association with Long-Term Mental Health Symptoms

Digital mental health services (DMHSs) have great potential for mitigating the mental health burden related to COVID-19, but public accessibility (ease of acquiring services when needed) to DMHSs during the pandemic is largely unknown. Accessibility to DMHSs was tracked longitudinally among a nationwide sample of 18,804 adults in China from before to one year after COVID-19 outbreak. Unconditional and conditional latent growth curve models and latent growth mixture models were fitted to explore the overall growth trend, influencing factors, and latent trajectory classes of accessibility to DMHSs throughout COVID-19. Generalized estimating equation models and generalized linear mixed models were employed to explore the association between accessibility to DMHSs and long-term mental health symptoms. We found that people generally reported increased difficulty in accessing DMHSs from before to one year after COVID-19 outbreak. Males, youngsters, individuals with low socioeconomic status, and individuals greatly affected by COVID-19 reported greater difficulty in accessing DMHSs. Four DMHS accessibility trajectory classes were identified: “lowest–great increase” (6.3%), “moderate low–slight increase” (44.4%), “moderate high–slight decrease” (18.1%) and “highest–great decrease” (31.2%). Trajectory classes reporting greater difficulty in accessing DMHSs were at higher risk for long-term mental symptoms. In conclusion, an overall increase in difficulty in accessing DMHSs is observed throughout COVID-19, and heterogeneity exists in DMHS accessibility trajectories. Our results suggest that easy access to DMHSs should be consistently facilitated. Moreover, access gaps should be reduced across demographic groups, and target populations for service allocation should alter as the pandemic evolves.

Examining the Associations between COVID-19-Related Psychological Distress, Social Media Addiction, COVID-19-Related Burnout, and Depression among School Principals and Teachers through Structural Equation Modeling

This study aims to investigate the relationships between COVID-19-related psychological distress, social media addiction, COVID-19-related burnout, and depression. The research, which was designed according to the relational survey model, was conducted with the participation of 332 school principals and teachers who received graduate education in the field of educational administration. Research data were collected through online surveys and then structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test and analyze the proposed hypotheses. The study’s findings revealed that COVID-19-related psychological distress strongly predicted COVID-19-related burnout. In this context, as the psychological distress associated with COVID-19 increased, the sense of burnout associated with COVID-19 also increased. However, it was found that burnout associated with COVID-19 significantly and positively predicted depression. SEM results revealed that COVID-19-related psychological distress directly affected COVID-19-related burnout, depression, and social media addiction. In addition, it was determined that an indirect effect of COVID-19-related burnout and social media addiction exists in the relationship between COVID-19-related psychological distress and depression.

Community Mitigation of COVID-19 and Portrayal of Testing on TikTok: Descriptive Study

BACKGROUND

COVID-19 testing remains an essential element of a comprehensive strategy for community mitigation. Social media is a popular source of information about health, including COVID-19 and testing information. One of the most popular communication channels used by adolescents and young adults who search for health information is TikTok-an emerging social media platform.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to describe TikTok videos related to COVID-19 testing.

METHODS

The hashtag #covidtesting was searched, and the first 100 videos were included in the study sample. At the time the sample was drawn, these 100 videos garnered more than 50% of the views for all videos cataloged under the hashtag #covidtesting. The content characteristics that were coded included mentions, displays, or suggestions of anxiety, COVID-19 symptoms, quarantine, types of tests, results of test, and disgust/unpleasantness. Additional data that were coded included the number and percentage of views, likes, and comments and the use of music, dance, and humor.

RESULTS

The 100 videos garnered more than 103 million views; 111,000 comments; and over 12.8 million likes. Even though only 44 videos mentioned or suggested disgust/unpleasantness and 44 mentioned or suggested anxiety, those that portrayed tests as disgusting/unpleasant garnered over 70% of the total cumulative number of views (73,479,400/103,071,900, 71.29%) and likes (9,354,691/12,872,505, 72.67%), and those that mentioned or suggested anxiety attracted about 60% of the total cumulative number of views (61,423,500/103,071,900, 59.59%) and more than 8 million likes (8,339,598/12,872,505, 64.79%). Independent one-tailed t tests (α=.05) revealed that videos that mentioned or suggested that COVID-19 testing was disgusting/unpleasant were associated with receiving a higher number of views and likes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our finding of an association between TikTok videos that mentioned or suggested that COVID-19 tests were disgusting/unpleasant and these videos' propensity to garner views and likes is of concern. There is a need for public health agencies to recognize and address connotations of COVID-19 testing on social media.

The Relationship between Fear of Infection and Insomnia among Dentists from Oradea Metropolitan Area during the Outbreak of Sars-CoV-2 Pandemic

Various studies have shown the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, identifying that people with a strong fear of getting infected are more prone to become stressed, depressed, anxious and to experience sleeping disturbance. The present study focuses on the impact of fear of COVID-19 and its relationship with insomnia among dentists. 83 dentists from public and private clinics were included in the research. A questionnaire was especially constructed for this study, consisting of three parts: the first part gathered socio-demographic and medical data, and a succession of self-rated items collected opinions about lockdown and preventive behaviors; the second part evaluated the level of fear of infection with Coronavirus-19 using the Fear of Covid 19 Scale; the third part investigated the presence of insomnia using the Athens Insomnia Scale. Collected data were processed using SPSS (v. 25). The total scores for fear of COVID 19 and insomnia were assessed. A strong positive correlation was identified between the total score of AIS and the total score of FCV-19S. The fear of COVID-19 had a significant positive correlation with the practice of several preventive behaviors. Dentists with chronic diseases were found to be more prone to suffer from insomnia than healthy dentists. Significant differences between women and men in terms of night symptoms were discussed. The findings are useful for dentists and policy makers to evaluate the impact of fear of infection on mental health status.