Social Media, Physical and Mental Health During a COVID-19 Lockdown

Social media including texting, internet use, and Facebook time have differential effects but those have not been studied during the social isolation of lockdowns when they might be more prevalent. In this Survey Monkey study, as many as 98% of 260 respondents reported texting, 100% using the internet, and 91% being on Facebook. The percentiles for those using the different media “a lot” were 45%, 77% and 42% respectively. Correlation analyses suggested that texting and internet use were positively related to Connecting Scale scores. However, internet use was also positively related to scores on Stress, Anxiety and Depression Scales and Facebook use was positively related to not only scores on Stress, Anxiety and Depression Scales but also to scores on Fatigue, Sleep Disturbance and PTSD scales. ANOVAS based on comparisons between groups reporting no to moderate use versus “a lot” of use were confirmatory of the correlation analyses. These results are limited by their being self-reported data from a non-representative, cross-sectional sample. Nonetheless, they highlight the positive and negative effects of different social media during a COVID-19 lockdown.