Anxiety, gender, and social media consumption predict COVID-19 emotional distress

Abstract

Fear and anxiety about COVID-19 have swept across the globe. Understanding the factors that contribute to increased emotional distress regarding the pandemic is paramount—especially as experts warn about rising cases. Despite large amounts of data, it remains unclear which variables are essential for predicting who will be most affected by the distress of future waves. We collected cross-sectional data on a multitude of socio-psychological variables from a sample of 948 United States participants during the early stages of the pandemic. Using a cross-validated hybrid stepwise procedure, we developed a descriptive model of COVID-19 emotional distress. Results reveal that trait anxiety, gender, and social (but not government) media consumption were the strongest predictors of increasing emotional distress. In contrast, commonly associated variables, such as age and political ideology, exhibited much less unique explanatory power. Together, these results can help public health officials identify which populations will be especially vulnerable to experiencing COVID-19-related emotional distress.

Analysis of Emotion and Recall in COVID-19 Advertisements: A Neuroscientific Study

“…These results are in line with those obtained in other studies [71,72] where personality traits are related to emotions, as described by Heffner et al [73] in a similar research on the influence of emotions on COVID-19 related advertising.…”

Social media use, and fear of COVID-19 among Ghanaian university students: the moderating role of gender

“…Based on the objectives of this study, our first finding suggests that increasing use of social media was related to high rate of fear of COVID-19 amongst students. This finding corroborates with a wide range of studies that have reported the positive links of problematic social media usage with negative mental health outcomes during the early days of the pandemic, including increasing fear of COVID-19 [11,29,38], perceived threat and panic of COVID-19 [24,60], emotional loneliness [9,61], psychological distress, anxiety, and depression [10,43,62]. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, and due to limited movements and social restrictions, there has been a record surge in the use of social media among the youth to gather and share information about the pandemic, communicate with loved ones, to study and finish assignments, among others [63].…”

“…For example, Xue et al [ 39 ] found that male university students used more Social Networking Sites (SNS) and had a higher situational humor response than female university students, while female university students reported a higher fear related to COVID-19 disease. Heffner et al [ 43 ] also found that variables such as trait anxiety, gender, and social media consumption were the strongest predictors of increasing emotional distress. Further, Hou and colleagues [ 44 ] noted in their study that while females experienced more severe stress and anxiety symptoms, males showed better resilience to stress.…”

Longitudinal changes in fear and anxiety among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 pandemic: a one-year follow-up study

“…Previous studies indicate that preventative behaviors can stymie the spread of the virus and are most likely to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 (e.g., hand washing, mask-wearing, etc.) (Heffner et al, 2021 ), which might well explain that implementing preventive measures could well have buffered the spread of COVID-19, while failure to implement preventive measures might accelerate the transmission of COVID-19, and hence increase the feeling of fear. One previous study likened the outbreak of COVID-19 to an acutely stressful or traumatic event, from a psychosocial perspective, involving potential threat to self and the survival of close others (Tsur & Abu-Raiya, 2020 ).…”