The mediating role of social media fatigue on social media usage behaviour of the ageing society during the COVID-19 pandemic

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, research on social media in the Malaysian context focused on its benefits and overlooked its drawbacks. To investigate this, we looked at an ageing society whose psychological health was severely affected during the pandemic. This study developed a model based on the Stressor-Strain-Outcome (SSO) framework that predicts factors that prompt passive social media use in Malaysia's ageing society during the COVID-19 pandemic. Convenient sampling was utilised to collect responses from 389 Malaysian older adults through an online survey. The direct effects of stressors, including information overload, communication overload, complexity, privacy, and fear of missing out on the strain of social media fatigue, and indirect effects on the outcome of passive social media use were investigated. For the assessment of the study model, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was applied. Out of 11 hypotheses, four direct and three indirect hypotheses were accepted. The study findings did not support the direct and indirect effects of privacy and fear of missing out on social media fatigue and passive social media use, respectively. Findings reveal complexity as the more significant factor influencing social media fatigue, and indirectly, contributing towards the passive use of social media. This study contributes to understanding how social media interaction affects an ageing society during the pandemic lockdown. Despite widespread interest in this field, research on ageing populations concerning social media effects and pandemics is still in its early stages in Malaysia. The study's conclusion offers a thorough examination of its limitations and provides valuable recommendations for future research endeavours. © SEARCH Journal 2023.

Rising Cybercrime on Social Media during Covid pandemic and its Impact on Digital Marketing

Covid pandemic brought a significant change in the way people learn, entertain, interact and conduct business. With people working and socializing remotely, social media usage skyrocketed and provided a fertile ground to cybercriminals to exploit the platforms and its users. This paper will explore the rising trend of cybercrime on social media, including specific types of cybercrime such as phishing scams, impersonation and misinformation. The paper will also discuss about the parties mostly affected by cybercrimes. Additionally, the paper will delve into the impact of increase in cybercrime on digital marketing, including the challenges faced by businesses. Overall the paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of cybercrime media during the covid pandemic and how it is impacting the overall society and digital markets all together.

[Influence of screen time on the sleep quality of students]. / Einfluss der Bildschirmzeit auf die Schlafqualität Studierender.

Introduction: The restorative effects of sleep are essential for physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral daily performance in college. In addition to the stress of everyday student life, the use of screen devices at the forefront of pandemic-related online teaching is also increasing dramatically. Particularly during evening and nighttime hours, increased screen use may contribute to physical, psychological, and cognitive activation, which in turn may negatively affect students' sleep quality. Methods: To determine possible associations between screen use in online teaching and its effects on sleep hygiene and quality, 216 students at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences anonymously and voluntarily participated in the online survey in May 2021. The positive ethics vote is available. Results: The general sleep quality of the student body can be rated as poor in 68.9% (n = 149) of the surveyed students. In particular, students who worked predominantly on screen devices in the evening or at nighttime for their studies, and thus had a chronobiological tendency to be a night person, tended to have poorer sleep. Discussion: The effects of long screen time in the evening and nighttime hours can have far-reaching consequences on sleep patterns and awareness of physical needs for breaks and sleep. Online teaching in times of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular led to an increase in screen time alongside equally high levels of personal use. This could result in a continued negative impact on sleep hygiene and quality, not only at the expense of daytime concentration and performance but rather of physical and mental health.

Understanding the role of social media usage and health self-efficacy in the processing of COVID-19 rumors: A SOR perspective.

Apart from the direct health and behavioral influence of the COVID-19 pandemic itself, COVID-19 rumors as an infodemic enormously amplified public anxiety and cause serious outcomes. Although factors influencing such rumors propagation have been widely studied by previous studies, the role of spatial factors (e.g., proximity to the pandemic) on individuals' response regarding COVID-19 rumors remain largely unexplored. Accordingly, this study, drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, examined how proximity to the pandemic (stimulus) influences anxiety (organism), which in turn determines rumor beliefs and rumor outcomes (response). Further, the contingent role of social media usage and health self-efficacy were tested. The research model was tested using 1246 samples via an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The results indicate that: (1)The proximity closer the public is to the pandemic, the higher their perceived anxiety; (2) Anxiety increases rumor beliefs, which is further positively associated rumor outcomes; (3) When the level of social media usage is high, the relationship between proximity to the pandemic and anxiety is strengthened; (4) When the level of health self-efficacy is high, the effect of anxiety on rumor beliefs is strengthened and the effect of rumor beliefs on rumor outcomes is also strengthened. This study provides a better understanding of the underlying mechanism of the propagation of COVID-19 rumors from a SOR perspective. Additionally, this paper is one of the first that proposes and empirically verifies the contingent role of social media usage and health self-efficacy on the SOR framework. The findings of study can assist the pandemic prevention department in to efficiently manage rumors with the aim of alleviating public anxiety and avoiding negative outcomes cause by rumors.

Social Media App Usage in Relation with PHQ-9 Depression Scores during the COVID-19 Pandemic

With about 300 million affected people, major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common diseases worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cases increased even further, by 28%. Many factors may be correlated with MDD, including the excessive use of social media apps. In this paper, we investigated the relationship between the use of social media and communication apps and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and social distancing like lockdowns probably changed smartphone usage times and usage patterns. While previous studies have shown an association between depression and social media usage, we report about the situation during these special circumstances. We employed a log-linear regression to examine the association of social media and communication app usage and depression. To quantify the usage, we applied the total usage time in hours of social media apps (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook) as well as communication apps (Phone and Messaging) within one week. To measure depressive symptoms, we used the PHQ-9 score. We discovered a significant association between the usage time and the PHQ-9 score (beta=0.0084, p-value=0.010). We conclude that social media usage is a robust marker for depression severity and future research should focus on a better understanding of the underlying causality and potential counter-measures. © 2022 ACM.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the influence of word-of-mouth on purchasing decisions?

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to drastic changes in influential media for purchasing decisions. Which media have been used more frequently after COVID-19? Do these changes differ between product types? To provide insights into these questions, we analyzed 12,000 respondents between 2018 and 2021. The results show that the influence of word-of-mouth on purchase decisions decreased after COVID-19, while the influence of social media advertising increased. We also find that the influence is moderated by product type;for example, video advertising, a subset of social media advertising shows a higher influence for search goods than for experience goods.

Social Media Use Purposes and Psychological Wellbeing in Times of Crises

This study investigates the effect of social media (SM) use purposes and user characteristics on individual psychological wellbeing (PWB) during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Informed by the uses and gratifications theory and PWB research, this study analyzed survey data collected from 282 SM users aged 18 through 59 from a minority-serving university in the United States in March-April 2020. Our quantitative data analysis showed that social media can be used to improve the quality of personal experiences during the COVID-19 crisis through three mechanisms-connectedness (i.e., social), engagement (i.e., collaborative), and entertainment (i.e., hedonic). However, the effect varied by gender, SM usage level, and individual concern about COVID-19 risk. The findings contribute to the literature and offer implications in technology use for enhancing public mental health during crises. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Exploring usage, expected benefits and perceived usefulness of social media in travel agencies: an empirical investigation in Italy

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to investigate travel agencies' social media usage and its perceived effectiveness by small- and micro-Italian travel agencies;the pre-pandemic period is compared to the forecasts for the post-Covid-19 period and different characteristics of firms and entrepreneurs are considered. Furthermore, the study analyses the expected benefits in terms of marketing objectives, such as improving brand image and/or personalizing the offer. Design/methodology/approach: The research was developed through a questionnaire administered electronically to travel agents (282 respondents). The resulting data was analyzed by applying the McNemar test, a pairwise t-test and the multivariate analysis of variance. Findings: The results show that social media are strategically significant for travel agents, even though their adoption is influenced by different agency aims;the perceived effectiveness results are diversified according to varying agency typologies. Research limitations/implications: The two main limitations of the study are its focus on the Italian context only and the missing consideration of the consumer's point of view. The latter prevents an exhaustive assessment of future trends regarding the use of social media in the client–agency relationship. Originality/value: The study, which focuses on a little debated topic concerning the relationship between social media and SMEs, organically explores various dimensions related to the adoption of social media by small agencies, also considering the impact of the Covid-19 on the perception of travel agents. As a further element of originality, the research takes into consideration the main social platforms separately rather than the set of tools as a whole. © 2023, Simone Splendiani, Mauro Dini, Francesca Rivetti and Tonino Pencarelli.

Consumer Behavior Prediction During Covid-19 Pandemic Conditions Using Sentiment Analytics

Covid-19 pandemic created a global shift in the way how consumers purchase. Restrictions to movements of individuals and commodities created a big challenge on day today life. Due to isolation, social media usage has increased substantially, and these platforms created significant impact carrying news and sentiments instantaneously. These sentiments impacted the purchase behavior of consumers and online retailers witnessed variations in their sales. Retailers used various customer behavior prediction models such as Recommendation systems to influence consumers and increasing their sales. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, these models may not perform the same way due to changes in consumer behavior. By integrating consumer sentiments from online social media platform as another feature in the prediction machine learning models such as recommendation systems, retailers can understand consumer behavior better and create Recommendations appropriately. This provides the consumers with appropriate choice of products in essential and non-essential categories based on pandemic condition restrictions. This also helps retailers to plan their operations and inventory appropriately. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Who wants to grow old in Welfare Sweden?

The research presented in this paper focuses on social media usage, specifically Facebook, in times of the Covid-19 crisis when some Swedish citizens lost trust in their official institutions. Once Sweden decided not to comply with WHO recommendations, the great majority of the Swedish population rallied around the flag in support of that move. For those who questioned this approach not much support was available, so they turned to social media. We ran a survey of 371 Facebook users gathered around the "Dr Whistleblower oxygen for all” group. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, in this study we analyse the role of social media in situations when people lose trust in public institutions and are left out. The most interesting and surprising result of this study is the discovery of fear for Dr Whistleblower's future, and fear for participants' own lives. We argue that in times of grave crisis, when we need reliable information the most, we turn to social media not only due to its immediacy but also due to its ability to connect us with a much wider circle of people than our close circle of friends can do. Then, more than ever, we look for trustworthy information, we express our fears and look for help online, thus seriously disrupting the traditional news landscape. © The Authors, (2022). All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission may be made without written permission from the individual authors.

Opportunities Presented by COVID-19 for Healthcare Green Supply Chain Management and Sustainability Performance: The Moderating Effect of Social Media Usage

This research explores the opportunities presented by COVID-19 for green supply chains' environmental practices and ecological sustainability performances in the healthcare sector. This study investigates the connections between uncertainty-fear of COVID-19, healthcare green supply chain management (GSCM), and the three pillars of a firm's sustainability performance (environmental, economic, and social). Moreover, this study examines the moderating role of social media usage (SMU) on the effect of uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 on healthcare-GSCM. When conducting the empirical part, this study uses the partial least squares structural equation modeling method based on a sample of 483 healthcare managers. The findings prove that the uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 has a beneficial impact on healthcare-GSCM. Besides, SMU moderates the relationship between uncertainty-fear of COVID-19 and healthcare-GSCM, indicating the importance of SMU in gathering information for the healthcare sector during COVID-19. Likewise, when interacting with healthcare firms' sustainability performances, healthcare-GSCM positively impacts environmental and social performances, though it has a negligible impact on economic performance. This study adds to the “social cognitive theory”by introducing the concept of uncertainty-fear of COVID-19. Furthermore, this research adds to the “resource-based view theory”and the “knowledge-based view theory”by exploring the SMU's role during the outbreak. IEEE

Active and passive social media usage and depression among the elderly during COVID-19: does race matter?

Increasing depression and mental health problems among the elderly during the pandemic have become a grave concern. In the present study, we borrowed from the emotional contagion theory and examined the association between social media use (SMU) and depression among the elderly during the pandemic. Our findings suggest that active but not passive SMU is positively related to depression. Moreover, we also examined if SMU (both active and passive) has a varying effect on the mental health of the elderly based on their race, i.e. blacks and whites. Our findings suggest that active SMU is detrimental for both blacks and whites, whereas passive SMU is positively related to depression only among blacks. Further, we undertook multiperiod analyses where depression scores were measured at four different time periods. We found that the adverse impact of SMU on depression persists over time. The present study draws attention to the antecedents of depression among the elderly during COVID-19. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Perceptions and engagement of Klang Valley urbanites on COVID-19 PSAs during the pandemic

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, rampant misinformation about the virus has created large-scale panic and uneasiness among the Malaysian public. In response to this threat, the Malaysian government launched public service announcements (PSAs) on COVID-19 in various media to increase public awareness and knowledge, specifically on recommended solutions. The messages in the PSAs were tailored to underscore the various phases of the pandemic to persuade public belief as well as nurture positive attitude and behavioural changes. The objectives of this study are: (1) to investigate the public's information-seeking behaviours, (2) to investigate user perceptions and indicators of PSAs, and (3) to determine the effectiveness of PSAs as a communication platform to convey important information about the pandemic throughout the different Movement Control Order (MCO) phases. Through focus group discussions with eight urban Klang Valley informants, findings highlight the crucial elements in identifying motivation and factors of media preferences which affect how various media platforms benefit the Malaysian public. The findings also illustrate the need for the government to ensure that the content and context of the PSAs meet the audiences' demographics in ensuring effective dissemination of information and awareness during a pandemic. © SEARCH Journal 2022.

Perceptions and engagement of Klang Valley urbanites on COVID-19 PSAs during the pandemic

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, rampant misinformation about the virus has created largescale panic and uneasiness among the Malaysian public. In response to this threat, the Malaysian government launched public service announcements (PSAs) on COVID-19 in various media to increase public awareness and knowledge, specifically on recommended solutions. The messages in the PSAs were tailored to underscore the various phases of the pandemic to persuade public belief as well as nurture positive attitude and behavioural changes. The objectives of this study are: (1) to investigate the public's information-seeking behaviours, (2) to investigate user perceptions and indicators of PSAs, and (3) to determine the effectiveness of PSAs as a communication platform to convey important information about the pandemic throughout the different Movement Control Order (MCO) phases. Through focus group discussions with eight urban Klang Valley informants, findings highlight the crucial elements in identifying motivation and factors of media preferences which affect how various media platforms benefit the Malaysian public. The findings also illustrate the need for the government to ensure that the content and context of the PSAs meet the audiences' demographics in ensuring effective dissemination of information and awareness during a pandemic.

Social Media Devices' Influence on User Neck Pain during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Collaborating Vertebral-GLCM Extracted Features with a Decision Tree.

The prevalence of neck pain, a chronic musculoskeletal disease, has significantly increased due to the uncontrollable use of social media (SM) devices. The use of SM devices by younger generations increased enormously during the COVID-19 pandemic, being-in some cases-the only possibility for maintaining interpersonal, social, and friendship relationships. This study aimed to predict the occurrence of neck pain and its correlation with the intensive use of SM devices. It is based on nine quantitative parameters extracted from the retrospective X-ray images. The three parameters related to angle_1 (i.e., the angle between the global horizontal and the vector pointing from C7 vertebra to the occipito-cervical joint), angle_2 (i.e., the angle between the global horizontal and the vector pointing from C1 vertebra to the occipito-cervical joint), and the area between them were measured from the shape of the neck vertebrae, while the rest of the parameters were extracted from the images using the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM). In addition, the users' ages and the duration of the SM usage (H.mean) were also considered. The decision tree (DT) machine-learning algorithm was employed to predict the abnormal cases (painful subjects) against the normal ones (no pain). The results showed that angle_1, area, and the image contrast significantly increased statistically with the time of SM-device usage, precisely in the range of 2 to 9 h. The DT showed a promising result demonstrated by classification accuracy and F1-scores of 94% and 0.95, respectively. Our findings confirmed that the objectively detected parameters, which elucidate the negative impacts of SM-device usage on neck pain, can be predicted by DT machine learning.

Parental concerns during COVID-19-related school closures: children's behaviors and media usage

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 has prompted widespread school closures and physical distancing measures. Concerns regarding COVID-19 school closures often increase stress levels in parents. Objective(s): This study examined whether higher levels of parental concerns were associated with children's problematic behaviors and other factors during COVID-19-related primary school closures. Method(s): Participants were 217 parents who responded to a webbased questionnaire covering parental concerns, subjective stress, and depression;children's sleep patterns, behavioral problems, and changes in activity level after COVID-19;previously received mental health services;and media usage during the online-only class period from community center in Suwon city. Result(s): The number of parental concerns was associated with children's behavioral problem index (BPI) score (Pearson correlation 0.211, p < 0.01), sleep problems (0.183, p < 0.01), increased smartphone usage (0.166, p < 0.05), increased TV usage (0.187, p < 0.01), parents' subjective stress levels (0.168, p < 0.05), and parental depression (0.200, p < 0.01). In families with children who previously received mental health services, the children reportedly suffered from more sleep and behavioral problems but not increased media usage, and parents noted more stress and depression. Parental concerns are related to family factors such as change of caregiver, no available caregiver, decreased household income, and recent adverse life events. Economically vulnerable people also reported higher rates of reported caregiver burden during COVID-19-related primary school closures, thus will require the potential heightened mental health needs. Conclusion(s): Ongoing monitoring of mental health at risky group and multiple support systems should be considered for parents having difficulty in caring their children.

Social Media Influence on Effectiveness of Customer Knowledge Management: Case study of PT XYZ

Social Media have been impacted in many ways of how an enterprise interact with its stakeholder (customer, supplier, employee). In the era of new Normal post Covid19 when customer is going online, then Enterprise should learn how to use this phenomenon to its benefit in achieving its goals. PT XYZ has used Social Media in many ways to connect with the customers. This paper is exploring these areas and comparing with other companies using Customer Knowledge Management aspects: for customers, from customers and about customers. In the end the paper will give some suggestions to improve effectiveness of the Social Media usage. © 2022 IEEE.

Examining the Interplay between Social Media Usage, Happiness, and Academic Performance with Data Science

There are numerous separate studies between social media usage and happiness, or social media and academic performance. However, the triangular relationship hasn't been thoroughly scrutinized. We set out our study wondering about the deep logic behind this interplay and its lessons on helping people make better decisions. We used correlation, linear regression, cosine similarity, random forest prediction, and aided visualization to analyze the data set collected. A strong association was found but the exact model of the trigonal relationship remained a mystery. COVID impacts people's happiness and GPA were also studied. © 2022 IEEE.

The Influence of Social Media Use on Social Connectedness Among University Students

The pandemic of Covid-19 has changed the lifestyle of people nowadays. Students has to adapt to the new norms in which they need to rely on the digital mediums to interact with others. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social media use and the connectedness among the university students in Malaysia during this pandemic of Covid-19. It also aims to investigate connection between the purposes of social media use (academic, socialization, entertainment and informativeness) and the level of social connectedness. Thirdly, the genders difference between social media use and social connectedness are investigated. The measurement used include the online social networking usage questionnaire and the social connectedness scale, and were distributed through snowball sampling method via the online platforms. A total of 300 respondents were recruited in this study with the mean age of 22.26. The results indicate that no significant relationship between social media usage and social connectedness. However, there was significant relationship between the purposes of using social media and social connectedness. Thirdly, no difference was found between females and males on the social media usage and social connectedness. Finally, this study highlights that the purpose of using social media could enhance the social relationship. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Agenda-Setting of the Public Health Emergencies (COVID-19) Based on Audience's Perspective

The outbreak of sudden public health incidents notes the agenda setting of the media in the process of message diffusion, but the audience's expectation for the media framework is seldom paid attention to. Through an online questionnaire, the media usage, satisfaction, intuitive evaluation of different message framing and placement methods of the audience (N=401) are investigated. The results notes that: audiences attach the most importance to message placement and gain-framing, where the importance of message placement is basically the same as the agenda setting of official media;audiences are satisfied with media coverage overall and are most concerned about the speed of media response, while the ability to deal with false message needs to be improved;some audiences attach equal importance to additional message on sudden public events. This study proposes an audience-led agenda-setting in response to public health emergencies, providing a new perspective to understand the audience's message needs and agenda setting. © 2022 ACM.