Emotional State and Social Media Experience: A Pandemic Case Study

The world has been experiencing an unprecedented global pandemic since December 2019. Lockdowns, restrictions in daily life, and social distancing characterize the new environment in which the world population finds itself, with minor variations depending on the country of residence. Television, social media, and other sources of information tend to influence and provide information about COVID-19 with varying tones. This study investigated the impact of alerts, news, and information about COVID-19 from social and mass media on the emotional state of the people a year and a half after the start of the pandemic. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 63 participants to assess the relationships between factors such as social media experience, perceived hope, worry, anxiety/depression, attentiveness, trust, health care, health risk, health safety, irritability, mental balance, and emotional state/distress. With the resulting information, a four-factor model was developed to demonstrate the relationships between social media experience, perceived hope, worry, and emotional state/distress. Additionally, a short interview was conducted among the participants in order to collect their opinions and qualitatively analyze them. The developed model demonstrates satisfactory performance characteristics and allows assessment of the delayed influence of incoming information on the people during this unprecedented pandemic.