Do Materialistic Adolescents Ruminate More About Their Social Media Posts?

2020 ◽  
pp. 0044118X2098417
Author(s):  
Keeley Hynes ◽  
Daniel G. Lannin ◽  
Jeremy B. Kanter ◽  
Ani Yazedjian ◽  
Margaret M. Nauta
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
External Validation ◽  
Value Orientation ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Over Time

Previous research suggests that ruminating on social media content is associated with greater mental distress (Yang et al., 2018). This study examined whether materialistic value orientation (MVO)—prioritizing values and goals related to consumerism, consumption, and social status—predicted social media rumination in a sample of diverse adolescents in a two-wave cross-lagged design. A cross-lagged analysis among 119 adolescents indicated that MVO at Wave 1 predicted greater social media rumination 4 months later at Wave 2, but social media rumination at Wave 1 did not predict MVO at Wave 2. Cross-lagged results suggested that MVO may lead to greater social media rumination over time for diverse adolescents. Adolescents with MVO could benefit from interventions to reduce the effects of their need for external validation and maladaptive rumination, as external validation and maladaptive rumination are linked to behaviors and thoughts that can be harmful to mental health.

scholarly journals Seeking Mental Health Support Among College Students in Video-Based Social Media: Content and Statistical Analysis of YouTube Videos

10.2196/31944 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. e31944
Author(s):  
Bogeum Choi ◽  
Heejun Kim ◽  
Jina Huh-Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
College Students ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Exact Test ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Over Time

Background Mental health is a highly stigmatized disease, especially for young people. Due to its free, accessible format, college students increasingly use video-based social media for many aspects of information needs, including how-to tips, career, or health-related needs. The accessibility of video-based social media brings potential in supporting stigmatized contexts, such as college students’ mental health. Understanding which kinds of videos about college students’ mental health have increased viewer engagement will help build a foundation for exploring this potential. Little research has been done to identify video types systematically, how they have changed over time, and their associations on viewer engagement both short term and long term. Objective This study aims to identify strategies for using video-based social media to combat stigmatized diseases, such as mental health, among college students. We identify who, with what perspective, purpose, and content, makes up the videos available on social media (ie, YouTube) about college students’ mental health and how these factors associate with viewer engagement. We then identify effective strategies for designing video-based social media content for supporting college students’ mental health. Methods We performed inductive content analysis to identify different types of YouTube videos concerning college students’ mental health (N=452) according to video attributes, including poster, perspective, and purpose. Time analysis showed how video types have changed over time. Fisher’s exact test was used to examine the relationships between video attributes. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to test the association between video types and viewer engagement. Lastly, we investigated the difference in viewer engagement across time between two major types of videos (ie, individuals’ storytelling and organization’s informational videos). Results Time trend analysis showed a notable increase in the number of (1) videos by individuals, (2) videos that represent students’ perspectives, and (3) videos that share stories and experiential knowledge over the recent years. Fisher’s exact test found all video attributes (ie, poster, perspective, and purpose) are significantly correlated with each other. In addition, the Mann-Whitney U test found that poster (individual vs organization) and purpose (storytelling vs sharing information) type has a significant association with viewer engagement (P<.001). Lastly, individuals’ storytelling videos had a greater engagement in the short term and the long term. Conclusions The study shows that YouTube videos on college students’ mental health can be well differentiated by the types of posters and the purpose of the videos. Taken together, the videos where individuals share their personal stories, as well as experiential knowledge (ie, tips and advice), engaged more viewers in both the short term and long term. Individuals’ videos on YouTube showed the potential to support college students' mental health in unique ways, such as providing social support, validating experience, and sharing the positive experience of help-seeking.

scholarly journals Seeking Mental Health Support Among College Students in Video-Based Social Media: Content and Statistical Analysis of YouTube Videos (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogeum Choi ◽  
Heejun Kim ◽  
Jina Huh-Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
College Students ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Exact Test ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Over Time

BACKGROUND Mental health is a highly stigmatized disease, especially for young people. Due to its free, accessible format, college students increasingly use video-based social media for many aspects of information needs, including how-to tips, career, or health-related needs. The accessibility of video-based social media brings potential in supporting stigmatized contexts, such as college students’ mental health. Understanding which kinds of videos about college students’ mental health have increased viewer engagement will help build a foundation for exploring this potential. Little research has been done to identify video types systematically, how they have changed over time, and their associations on viewer engagement both short term and long term. OBJECTIVE This study aims to identify strategies for using video-based social media to combat stigmatized diseases, such as mental health, among college students. We identify who, with what perspective, purpose, and content, makes up the videos available on social media (ie, YouTube) about college students’ mental health and how these factors associate with viewer engagement. We then identify effective strategies for designing video-based social media content for supporting college students’ mental health. METHODS We performed inductive content analysis to identify different types of YouTube videos concerning college students’ mental health (N=452) according to video attributes, including poster, perspective, and purpose. Time analysis showed how video types have changed over time. Fisher’s exact test was used to examine the relationships between video attributes. The Mann-Whitney <i>U</i> test was used to test the association between video types and viewer engagement. Lastly, we investigated the difference in viewer engagement across time between two major types of videos (ie, individuals’ storytelling and organization’s informational videos). RESULTS Time trend analysis showed a notable increase in the number of (1) videos by individuals, (2) videos that represent students’ perspectives, and (3) videos that share stories and experiential knowledge over the recent years. Fisher’s exact test found all video attributes (ie, poster, perspective, and purpose) are significantly correlated with each other. In addition, the Mann-Whitney <i>U</i> test found that poster (individual vs organization) and purpose (storytelling vs sharing information) type has a significant association with viewer engagement (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). Lastly, individuals’ storytelling videos had a greater engagement in the short term and the long term. CONCLUSIONS The study shows that YouTube videos on college students’ mental health can be well differentiated by the types of posters and the purpose of the videos. Taken together, the videos where individuals share their personal stories, as well as experiential knowledge (ie, tips and advice), engaged more viewers in both the short term and long term. Individuals’ videos on YouTube showed the potential to support college students' mental health in unique ways, such as providing social support, validating experience, and sharing the positive experience of help-seeking.

scholarly journals Medicated bodies: Mental distress, social media and affect

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 549-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Tucker ◽  
Lewis Goodings
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Psychiatric Medication ◽  
Social Media Site ◽  
Health Social Media ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Impact

Social media are increasingly being recruited into care practices in mental health. This article analyses how a major new mental health social media site ( www.elefriends.org.uk ) is used when trying to manage the impact of psychiatric medication on the body. Drawing on Henri Bergson’s concept of affection, analysis shows that Elefriends is used at particular moments of reconfiguration (e.g. change in dosage and/or medication), periods of self-experimentation (when people tailor their regimen by altering prescriptions or ceasing medication) and when dealing with a present bodily concern (showing how members have a direct, immediate relationship with the site). In addition, the analysis illustrates how users have to structure their communication to try to avoid ‘triggering’ distress in others. The article concludes by pointing to the need to focus on the multiple emerging relationships between bodies and social media in mental health, due to the ways the latter are becoming increasingly prominent technologies through which to experience the body when distressed.

Tracking self-reported symptoms and medical conditions on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinglan Ding ◽  
Daisy Massey ◽  
Chenxi Huang ◽  
Connor Grady ◽  
Yuan Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Positive Predictive Value ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Medical Conditions ◽  
Health Related ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

BACKGROUND Harnessing health-related data posted on social media in real-time has the potential to offer insights into how the pandemic impacts the mental health and general well-being of individuals and populations over time. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to obtain information on symptoms and medical conditions self-reported by non-Twitter social media users during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and to determine how discussion of these symptoms and medical conditions on social media changed over time. METHODS We used natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify symptom and medical condition topics being discussed on social media between June 14 and December 13, 2020. The sample social media posts were geotagged by NetBase, a third-party data provider. We calculated the positive predictive value and sensitivity to validate the classification of the posts. We also assessed the frequency of different health-related discussions on social media over time during the study period, and compared the changes in the frequency of each symptom/medical condition discussion to the fluctuation of U.S. daily new COVID-19 cases during the study period. Additionally, we compared the trends of the 5 most commonly mentioned symptoms and medical conditions from June 14 to August 31 (when the U.S. passed 6 million COVID-19 cases) to the trends observed from September 1 to December 13, 2020. RESULTS Within a total of 9,807,813 posts (nearly 70% were sourced from the U.S.), we identified discussion of 120 symptom topics and 1,542 medical condition topics. Our classification of the health-related posts had a positive predictive value of over 80% and an average classification rate of 92% sensitivity. The 5 most commonly mentioned symptoms on social media during the study period were: anxiety (in 201,303 posts or 12.2% of the total posts mentioning symptoms), generalized pain (189,673, 11.5%), weight loss (95,793, 5.8%), fatigue (91,252, 5.5%), and coughing (86,235, 5.2%). The 5 most discussed medical conditions were: COVID-19 (in 5,420,276 posts or 66.4% of the total posts mentioning medical conditions), unspecified infectious disease (469,356, 5.8%), influenza (270,166, 3.3%), unspecified disorders of the central nervous system (253,407, 3.1%), and depression (151,752, 1.9%). The changes in the frequency of 2 medical conditions, COVID-19 and unspecified infectious disease, were similar to the fluctuation of daily new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. CONCLUSIONS COVID-19 and symptoms of anxiety were the two most commonly discussed health-related topics on social media from June 14 to December 13, 2020. Real-time monitoring of social media posts on symptoms and medical conditions may help assess the population's mental health status and enhance public health surveillance for infectious disease.

scholarly journals Mapping gender transition sentiment patterns via social media data: toward decreasing transgender mental health disparities

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 749-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver L Haimson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Mental Health Disparities ◽  
Gender Transition ◽  
Transgender People ◽  
Transgender Identity ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Objective Transgender people face substantial mental health disparities, and this population’s emotional well-being can be particularly volatile during gender transition. Understanding gender transition sentiment patterns can positively impact transgender people by enabling them to anticipate, and put support in place for, particularly difficult time periods. Yet, tracking sentiment over time throughout gender transition is challenging using traditional research methods. This study’s objective was to use social media data to understand average gender transition sentiment patterns. Materials and Methods Computational sentiment analysis and statistics were used to analyze 41 066 posts from 240 Tumblr transition blogs (online spaces where transgender people document gender transitions) to understand sentiment patterns over time and quantify relationships between transgender identity disclosures, sentiment, and social support. Results Findings suggest that sentiment increases over time on average throughout gender transition, particularly when people receive supportive responses to transgender identity disclosures. However, after disclosures to family members, people experienced temporary increased negative sentiment, followed by increased positive sentiment in the long term. After transgender identity disclosures on Facebook, an important means of mass disclosure, those with supportive networks experienced increased positive sentiment. Conclusions With foreknowledge of sentiment patterns likely to occur during gender transition, transgender people and their mental healthcare professionals can prepare with proper support in place throughout the gender transition process. Social media are a novel data source for understanding transgender people’s sentiment patterns, which can help reduce mental health disparities for this marginalized population during a particularly difficult time.

scholarly journals Mental distress among young adults in Great Britain: long-term trends and early changes during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Gagné ◽  
I. Schoon ◽  
A. McMunn ◽  
A. Sacker
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Prevalence Ratio ◽  
Health Trends ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Purpose In Great Britain, few studies documented mental health trends in young adults in the years preceding 2020, the mental health dimensions affected, and how these compare with changes observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Long-term trends in mental health among 16–34 year old men and women between 1991 and 2018, and changes between 2018–19 and July–September 2020 were examined using all waves from the British Household Panel Study (1991–2008), the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–20), and the first five UKHLS COVID-19 waves administered in April, May, June, July, and September 2020. Findings are based on the GHQ-12 continuous score (0–36), clinically significant cases (4 + /12) and severe cases (7 + /12) for mental distress, and item endorsements. Results Between 1991 and 2018, the prevalence of cases (4 + /12) increased from 14–22% to 19–32% across groups. Increases were largest in women aged 16–24. In April 2020, the risk of caseness (4 + /12) increased across groups by 55% to 80% compared to the 2018–19 baseline. This increase, however, rapidly diminished over time: in July–September 2020, there was only a higher risk of caseness (4 + /12) in men aged 25–34 (prevalence ratio = 1.29, 95% CI 1.01–1.65) compared to the 2018–19 baseline. Conclusion Whereas distress surged in April 2020, its return to pre-pandemic levels by September 2020 highlights the nuanced impact that the pandemic may have over time. Given the magnitude of the decline in mental health over the past decade, attention must be given to young adults once the pandemic ends.

scholarly journals Social Media Reveals Psychosocial Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koustuv Saha ◽  
John Torous ◽  
Eric D. Caine ◽  
Munmun De Choudhury
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Psychosocial Effects ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Mental Health Concerns ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Over Time

AbstractBackgroundThe novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused several disruptions in personal and collective lives worldwide. The uncertainties surrounding the pandemic have also led to multi-faceted mental health concerns, which can be exacerbated with precautionary measures such as social distancing and self-quarantining, as well as societal impacts such as economic downturn and job loss. Despite noting this as a “mental health tsunami,” the psychological effects of the COVID-19 crisis remains unexplored at scale. Consequently, public health stakeholders are currently limited in identifying ways to provide timely and tailored support during these circumstances.ObjectiveOur work aims to provide insights regarding people’s psychosocial concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging social media data. We aim to study the temporal and linguistic changes in symptomatic mental health and support expressions in the pandemic context.MethodsWe obtain ∼60M Twitter streaming posts originating from the U.S. from 24 March-24 May 2020, and compare these with ∼40M posts from a comparable period in 2019 to attribute the effect of COVID-19 on people’s social media self-disclosure. Using these datasets, we study people’s self-disclosure on social media in terms of symptomatic mental health concerns and expressions of support. We employ transfer learning classifiers that identify the social media language indicative of mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, stress, and suicidal ideation) and support (emotional and informational support). We then examine the changes in psychosocial expressions over time and language, comparing the 2020 and 2019 datasets.ResultsWe find that all of the examined psychosocial expressions have significantly increased during the COVID-19 crisis – mental health symptomatic expressions have increased by ∼14%, and support expressions have increased by ∼5%, both thematically related to COVID-19. We also observe a steady decline and eventual plateauing in these expressions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have been due to habituation or due to supportive policy measures enacted during this period. Our language analyses highlight that people express concerns that are very specific to and contextually related to the COVID-19 crisis.ConclusionsWe studied the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 crisis by using social media data from 2020, finding that people’s mental health symptomatic and support expressions significantly increased during the COVID-19 period as compared to similar data from 2019. However, this effect gradually lessened over time, suggesting that people adapted to the circumstances and their “new normal”. Our linguistic analyses revealed that people expressed mental health concerns regarding personal and professional challenges, healthcare and precautionary measures, and pandemic-related awareness. This work shows the potential to provide insights to mental healthcare and stakeholders and policymakers in planning and implementing measures to mitigate mental health risks amidst the health crisis.

scholarly journals Testing the Impact of Counseling over Time on Non-Urgent Undergraduate Life Satisfaction

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Blau ◽  
John DiMino ◽  
Iris Abreu ◽  
Kayla LeLeux-LaBarge
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
University Counseling Center ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
On Line ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Mental Health Concerns ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

Data for non-urgent undergraduate clients at a University Counseling Center (UCC) were collected using on-line surveys over three time-periods. Despite the expected diminishing number of participants over time, within-time correlations generally showed that level of mental distress and mental health concerns were negatively related to life satisfaction, while self-esteem was positively related. Using a smaller sample of matched-over-three time-periods clients, levels of mental distress and mental health concerns significantly declined, while life satisfaction significantly increased. The strongest changes for this complete data sample were found from Time 1 to Time 3 for reduced mental health concerns and increased life satisfaction. These findings reinforce that additional counseling sessions for undergraduates may be beneficial, and that spreading these sessions out may also be useful. Scientifically demonstrating to higher-level University administration that a UCC can help undergraduates in distress should ideally help the UCC to increase its allocation of university-based resources.

After Aylan Kurdi: How Tweeting About Death, Threat, and Harm Predict Increased Expressions of Solidarity With Refugees Over Time

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura G. E. Smith ◽  
Craig McGarty ◽  
Emma F. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
European Union ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Media Content ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Over Time

Viral social media content has been heralded for its power to transform policy, but online responses are often derided as “slacktivism.” This raises the questions of what drives viral communications and what is their effect on support for social change. We addressed these issues in relation to Twitter discussions about Aylan Kurdi, a child refugee who died en route to the European Union. We developed a longitudinal paradigm to analyze 41,253 tweets posted 1 week before the images of Aylan Kurdi emerged, the week they emerged, and 10 weeks afterward—at the time of the Paris terror attacks. Tweeting about death before the images emerged predicted tweeting about Aylan Kurdi, and this, sustained by discussion of harm and threat, predicted the expression of solidarity with refugees 10 weeks later. Results suggest that processes of normative conflict and communication can be intertwined in promoting support for social change.

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