Social Media Use During COVID-19 Linked With Depression And Trauma

When the COVID-19 pandemic locked us in our homes, we sought comfort in our smartphone, and of course, social media. And for most of us, social media platforms became our one source of news, entertainment, creativity and fun.

However, now researchers have discovered that social media might be doing more harm than good to us, during this pandemic.

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Researchers at Penn State and Jinan University have discovered that excessive use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic for health information surrounding SARS CoV-2 has caused depression and secondary trauma in individuals.

To the uninitiated, secondary trauma basically means behaviours and emotions of individuals resulting from learning of a traumatising event or information.

Researchers looked at 320 participants living in urban districts of Wuhan, China from around February 2020 -- the time the area was under complete lockdown due to the novel coronavirus. They gave each of the participants an online survey that was made to analyse how the participants dealt with shared health information on China¡¯s most popular social media platform WeChat.

They used a tool that was originally developed to test Facebook addiction. It involved a five-point Likert-style scale that ranged from ¡®Strongly disagree to Strongly Agree¡¯. The survey looked at the participants¡¯ opinion on how effective WeChat has been in providing them necessary information as well as looking at health behaviour changes as a result of WeChat.

Bu Zhong, associate professor of journalism, Penn State saw some striking revelations, "We found that the Wuhan residents obtained tremendous informational and peer support but slightly less emotional support when they accessed and shared health information about COVID-on WeChat. The participants also reported a series of health behaviour changes, such as increased handwashing and use of face masks.

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As per the survey, more than half of the participants reported experiencing some kind of depression, with 20 percent experiencing severe or moderate depression. From the people who reported to have secondary trauma, 80 percent experienced a low level of trauma, while 13 percent experienced moderate levels and 7 percent experienced high levels of trauma.

Zhong concluded stating, "Our results show that social media usage was related to both depression and secondary trauma during the early part of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. The findings suggest that taking a social media break from time to time may help to improve people's mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic."