Pandemic: signs of depression linked to too much social media use: study

More than half of the participants in Wuhan survey report some level of depression
Take breaks from online platforms during stressful times, researchers suggest

Coronavirus China

Associated Press

Published: 7:35pm, 5 Oct, 2020

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Excessive social media use during the pandemic is a predictor of symptoms of depression and secondary trauma, according to a new study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Jinan University in Guangzhou.

The study, published last month in Computers in Human Behaviour, surveyed 320 participants living in the central Chinese city of Wuhan about how they got access to and shared health information with friends, family members, and colleagues over WeChat, China’s most popular social media app. They also used a stress scale to measure anxiety and depression by asking participants to rate statements such as “I felt that life was meaningless” and “I had disturbing dreams about the coronavirus epidemic”.

Bu Zhong, a journalism professor at Penn State and a co-author of the study, said the team began looking into the effects of social media use on mental health soon after Wuhan was locked down to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

“We didn’t expect that this would become a global pandemic,” he said. “We were just thinking that we could reveal some invisible harms caused by the outbreak. In China’s situation, local media was not reporting on Covid-19. If you just read the local newspaper and watched television, you didn’t get information about the virus. This made people extremely stressed, and they began relying overwhelmingly on social media.”

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Previous research has shown that more people are relying on social media to find and share health information during times of crisis. The Harris Poll found that between late March and early May, 46 per cent to 51 per cent of American adults reported using social media more often than before the pandemic.

The new study found that more than half of the participants, none of whom reported any traumatic or depressive disorders before the pandemic, experienced some level of depression. Nearly 20 per cent of the participants reported experiencing a moderate to severe level of depression, and slightly more than 20 per cent reported moderate to severe levels of secondary trauma, which can occur when people hear about the traumatic experiences of others. Based on the researchers’ model, excessive use of social media was linked with more severe levels of depression and secondary trauma.

At the same time, Zhong said that it was important to understand how all types of social media, including platforms like Facebook and Twitter, could help people during a health crisis.

“I think when disasters find us, we tend to go to our social networks more to get help and reach out,” he said. “It’s human nature. We don’t want people to think social media is bad. We just want them to know there is a balance, and when you go over the threshold, like checking every five or 10 minutes, it can bring even more stress to yourself.”

Researchers said that it was possible that people who consumed more health information on WeChat attached excessive importance to the content, experiencing more depression and secondary trauma than those who used the platform less. In response, they recommend social media breaks during a stressful health crisis like the pandemic.

“We should not blame social media,” Zhong said. “We should just pay attention to how we are using it.”

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