Internet memes related to the COVID-19 pandemic as a potential coping mechanism for anxiety

Abstract

This study examined whether significantly anxious individuals differed from non-anxious individuals in their perceptual ratings of internet memes related to the Covid-19 pandemic, whilst considering the mediating role of emotion regulation. Eighty individuals presenting clinically significant anxiety symptoms (indicating ≥ 15 on the GAD-7) and 80 non-anxious controls (indicating ≤ 4) rated the emotional valance, humour, relatability, shareability, and offensiveness of 45 Covid-19 internet memes. A measure of emotion regulation difficulties was also completed. The perception of humour, relatability, and shareability were all greater amongst anxious individuals relative to non-anxious controls. These differences were not mediated by emotion regulation deficits. Internet memes related to the current Covid-19 pandemic may tentatively serve as coping mechanism for individuals experiencing severe symptoms of anxiety.

Smile! It's only Covid: Analyzing covid-19 internet memes

“…Many lost their jobs, children were not allowed to attend school, family members, including elderly ones were not allowed to meet each other. The prolonged stay in cramped urban apartments led to a sharp increase in depression, anxiety, and domestic abuse, as well as in cases of mental health crisis, especially among teenagers and young adults ( Akram et al, 2021 ). But the affordance of the internet, and specifically the ubiquitous social media apps, allowed nearly everybody to become updated and react in one way or another to this miserable situation.…”

“…Despite the empirical challenge to isolate and detect the originality and meaningfulness of a given meme, several researchers examined the prominent memes during the pandemic and speculated why certain topics have been preferred and chosen more often ( Akram, Irvine, Allen, et al . , 2021 ; Lutuzova & Schulmann, 2022 ).…”

People’s Perspectives on Social Media Use during COVID-19 Pandemic

“…humorous COVID-19 mask memes [14]. Humorous memes have also found to provide a coping mechanism for the pandemic, especially for individuals suffering from anxiety [4]. Also other research efforts have been put in examining the effects of social media on people's emotions and mental wellbeing during the pandemic times.…”

Social Media News Use Induces COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Through Skepticism Regarding Its Efficacy: A Longitudinal Study From the United States

“…As a result, social media rose to fulfill a critical role as a source of social news and the primary information outlet of governments and health organizations. However, the news and informational use of social media related to COVID-19 occur in masse with its communicative use for buffering COVID-19-related stress and anxiety (Zhao and Zhou, 2021), sharing stories of hardship (Cauberghe et al, 2021), and its recreational use for sharing humorous content and memes related to the pandemic (Akram et al, 2021). Consequently, the infodemic has also raised concerns about the large-scale spread of low-quality and unverified information and even misinformation related to COVID-19 medical research.…”