The More COVID-19 Information We Shared; the More Anxious We Got? The Associations Among Social Media Use, Anxiety, and Coping Strategies.

Social media (SM) are crucial channels for the spread of information on COVID-19. However, they have rarely been explored. This study examined three types of social media use (SMU): SM usage time, passive SMU (PSMU), active SMU (ASMU) and investigated the relationships among three type of SMU, anxiety, and coping strategies. We recruited 1,150 adults in Taiwan for this study. Although past research found that ASMU is associated with well-being and that PSMU is associated with negative emotions, the findings of this study indicated that only ASMU could significantly predict anxiety; PSMU and SM usage time could not predict anxiety. The reason may be that individuals with unmet basic needs may depend on ASMU to satisfy their need for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. However, compared with PSMU, ASMU is more likely to be immersed anxiety due to its continuous exposure to COVID-19 news. The results regarding the paths between SMU and coping strategies were similar; a greater predictive coefficient existed between ASMU and avoidant coping, whereas the other two types of SMU were non-significant or weak predictors of coping strategies. Individuals may post things indicating that the pandemic is slowing down or is not scary to reduce their anxiety, deny the severity of issues, and cope with stress. On the whole, this study found that ASMU involving the pandemic can be used to predict psychological consequences and avoidant coping.

The Effect of Positive Intervention Dosing Frequency: Fixed Intervals May Decrease More Depression than Flexible Ones.

Positive interventions (PIs) that are based on the theory of positive psychology have proven to be effective in improving well-being and alleviating depression. However, little research has explored the effect of dosing intervals on experimental effects. As such, this study designed strength-based PIs using cognitive reframing theory and compared flexible and fixed dosing intervals to find out which one could more effectively reduce depression with equal total amounts of dosing. The 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (8-item CES-D) and the Positive reframing scale (PRS) were adopted as research instruments. A total of 193 Taiwanese college students were recruited as the research sample and they were randomly assigned to experimental Group A (fixed dosing intervals), experimental Group B (flexible dosing intervals), and the Control Group. The research participants received 17-day interventions with follow-up tests administered in the seventh week of the experiment. Ultimately, 157 participants completed the experiment. According to the ANCOVA results, participants in experimental Group A showed significantly lower degrees of depression than those in the Control Group in both post-test and follow-up stages and displayed greater effect size in the follow-up stage than in the post-test stage. The results indicated that the design of fixed dosing intervals enabled the participants to effectively integrate reflections on reframing learned during PIs into their life. On the contrary, participants in experimental Group B exhibited no significant difference in the degree of depression from those in the Control Group during either the post-test or follow-up stage and manifested poorer effects in the follow-up stage than in the post-test stage. These results demonstrated that fixed dosing intervals achieved better effects than flexible dosing intervals. Participants receiving fixed dosing intervals could more effectively execute cognitive reframing and showed longer-lasting experimental effects, whereas participants using the design of flexible dosing intervals were more prone to forget to implement PIs and attain less positive effects as a result.

Toward COVID-19 Information: Infodemic or Fear of Missing Out?

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a global pandemic and exerted a profound physiological and mental impact on the public. Due to anxiety from being bombarded by information from the news and social media, people may constantly read and repost, with a fear of missing out (FOMO), information about COVID-19 on social media. So far, there has been little research on COVID-19 FOMO. We therefore compiled the COVID-19 information fear of missing out scale (CIFS) and administered it to 1178 adults in Taiwan to identify the possible factors influencing CIFS scores. We demonstrated that the CIFS had good reliability, factor validity, and criterion validity. With regard to demographic variables, we found that gender, marital status, travel time to the nearest hospital, and educational background influenced CIFS scores. In contrast, the participant age and whether he or she lived in an urban area did not affect the CIFS scores. With regard to social media usage, social media usage time (r = 0.025) and the numbers of COVID-19-related posts read on social media (r = 0.117) or instant messaging (r = 0.169) were not highly correlated with CIFS scores. Rather, CIFS scores were found to be significantly correlated to the frequency of reposting COVID-19-related information on social media (r = 0.497) and on instant messaging (r = 0.447). These results indicate that CIFS scores are closely associated not with passive browsing on social media but with the frequency at which an individual actively reposts information. In other words, what creates CIF is not an overabundance of information (i.e., an infodemic) but the active reposting and interpretation of information. Individual autonomy for interpretation of the received information and self-determination about reposting are key factors for COVID-19 information FOMO. When facing the COVID-19-related news on social media, it is the active information-related FOMO, not the passive infodemic, that influences our social media usage.

Ephemeral but Influential? The Correlation between Facebook Stories Usage, Addiction, Narcissism, and Positive Affect.

Despite the steep increase in Facebook Stories users, there is scant research on this topic. This study compared the associations of frequency of Stories update, frequency of news feed updates, time spent reading Stories, and time spent reading news feeds, with regard to social media addiction, narcissism, and positive affect in college students. We recruited a sample of 316 college students from Taiwan. The analytical results show that Facebook Stories are more addictive and provoke more positive affect than conventional news feeds. Moreover, only usage behaviors associated with Stories predict narcissism. This study also found that the prediction of news feeds with regard to addiction, narcissism, and positive affect also seems to be diminishing and is being replaced by those of Stories. Future studies on the psychological consequences and predictors of social media usage should regard Stories as a crucial variable.

Using Social Network Sites to Boost Savoring: Positive Effects on Positive Emotions.

Research has demonstrated that positive interventions (PIs) can be effective in enhancing well-being. Our study used Facebook to conduct a PI based on savoring. Sixty-one university students in Taiwan were randomly assigned to undergo a three-week savoring PI, and 61 participants were assigned to a no-treatment control group. The results showed significantly enhanced positive affect in the treatment group compared to the control group, in both a post-test and a final follow-up, but no significant differences between the two groups in negative affect. The treatment group also displayed significantly lower depression in the post-test, which was not maintained at the follow-up. These results indicate that, for university students, a savoring intervention via Facebook can be an effective way of enhancing positive emotions.

Comparison of Internet-based and paper-based questionnaires in Taiwan using multisample invariance approach.

This study examines whether the Internet-based questionnaire is psychometrically equivalent to the paper-based questionnaire. A random sample of 2,400 teachers in Taiwan was divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was invited to complete the electronic form of the Chinese version of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) placed on the Internet, whereas the control group was invited to complete the paper-based CES-D, which they received by mail. The multisample invariance approach, derived from structural equation modeling (SEM), was applied to analyze the collected data. The analytical results show that the two groups have equivalent factor structures in the CES-D. That is, the items in CES-D function equivalently in the two groups. Then the equality of latent mean test was performed. The latent means of "depressed mood," "positive affect," and "interpersonal problems" in CES-D are not significantly different between these two groups. However, the difference in the "somatic symptoms" latent means between these two groups is statistically significant at alpha = 0.01. But the Cohen's d statistics indicates that such differences in latent means do not apparently lead to a meaningful effect size in practice. Both CES-D questionnaires exhibit equal validity, reliability, and factor structures and exhibit a little difference in latent means. Therefore, the Internet-based questionnaire represents a promising alternative to the paper-based questionnaire.