Increasing Social Media Presence for Graduate Medical Education Programs.

Virtual residency interviews during COVID-19 pandemic created a need for residency programs to use social media to increase their visibility and connect with potential applicants. This was, however, new and a road never travelled for many programs. This report describes how our General Surgery Residency Program increased its presence through social media by using various exposure methods and approaches, including diversifying presence and developing candid personalized content. Results suggest that these methods have increased our exposure and reach from an average of 7 people per post to posts reaching over 4500 people. Moreover, the video posts introducing our residents and faculty provided the highest activity and reach. Thus, appropriate use of social media with described interventions and new content creation could exponentially increase the visibility of a residency program. Moreover, educating faculty and residents on the use and importance of social media could increase their interest and participation as well.

The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation.

Numerous studies find associations between social media use and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation. While such findings are often interpreted as evidence that social media causally promotes conspiracy beliefs, we theorize that this relationship is conditional on other individual-level predispositions. Across two studies, we examine the relationship between beliefs in conspiracy theories and media use, finding that individuals who get their news from social media and use social media frequently express more beliefs in some types of conspiracy theories and misinformation. However, we also find that these relationships are conditional on conspiracy thinking--the predisposition to interpret salient events as products of conspiracies--such that social media use becomes more strongly associated with conspiracy beliefs as conspiracy thinking intensifies. This pattern, which we observe across many beliefs from two studies, clarifies the relationship between social media use and beliefs in dubious ideas. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09734-6.

The E-Nurture Project: A Hybrid Virtual Neonatal Follow Up Model for 2021.

Neonatal follow-up has long focused on a model of surveillance and identification of short-term outcomes. This model has long become outdated, with evidence documenting the need for longer follow-up with known school-based challenges and significant gaps in knowledge by educators. This article reviews the history of neonatal follow-up and demonstrates a novel approach to neonatal follow-up, built largely with a hybrid virtual platform, which then became essential with the declaration of the pandemic in 2020.

Youth civic development amid the pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth experienced abrupt closures of in-person spaces that were vital for their civic development, like schools and community organizations. Social media became the primary context for youth to make their voices heard and mobilize around important sociopolitical issues like anti-Asian racism, police violence, and elections. However, youth experienced civic development in different ways during the pandemic. Some youth gained a critical awareness of societal inequities, while others were radicalized into far-right ideologies. Racially minoritized youth experienced vicarious trauma and racism while civically engaging in 2020, and their civic development must be viewed in the context of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism.

Thematic analysis of national online narratives on regular asymptomatic testing for Covid-19 in schools in England.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the public perceptions of the schools Covid-19 testing programme in England. DESIGN: Qualitative social media analysis. SETTING: Online users of parenting forums (Mumsnet and Netmums), Facebook newspaper pages and Daily Mail online readers, who responded to posts or articles about the schools testing programme in England, between 1 and 31 March, 2021. RESULTS: Overall, seven main themes were identified, these were divided into barriers and facilitators to engaging in testing for Covid-19. Barriers were: uncertainty around testing in the absence of symptoms; concerns about testing; implications about testing positive; mistrust in the Government. Facilitators were: desire to protect others; desire to return to normality; and hearing others' positive experiences. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis highlighted that alongside well-established barriers to engaging in asymptomatic testing, parents were having to negotiate additional complex decisions around balancing their child's anxiety over testing alongside acknowledgement of the implications of regular testing, such as return to normality and protecting others. Parents and children would benefit from additional practical and social support to facilitate engagement with the schools testing programme.

Characterizing Responses to COVID-19 Vaccine Promotion on TikTok.

PURPOSE: The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) sponsored a TikTok contest to improve vaccination rates among young people. This analysis sought to advance understanding of COVID-19 vaccine perceptions among ADPH contestants and TikTok commenters. APPROACH: This exploratory content analysis characterized sentiment and imagery in the TikTok videos and comments. Videos were coded by two reviewers and engagement metrics were collected for each video. SETTING: Publicly available TikTok videos entered into ADPH's contest with the hashtags #getvaccinatedAL and #ADPH between July 16 - August 6, 2021. PARTICIPANTS: ADPH contestants (n = 44) and TikTok comments (n = 502). METHOD: A content analysis was conducted; videos were coded by two reviewers and engagement metrics was collected for each video (e.g., reason for vaccination, content, type of vaccination received). Video comments were analyzed using VADER, a lexicon and rule-based sentiment analysis tool). RESULTS: Of 44 videos tagged with #getvaccinatedAL and #ADPH, 37 were related to the contest. Of the 37 videos, most cited family/friends and civic duty as their reason to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Videos were shared an average of 9 times and viewed 977 times. 70% of videos had comments, ranging from 0-61 (mean 44). Words used most in positively coded comments included, "beautiful," "smiling face emoji with 3 hearts," "masks," and "good.;" whereas words used most in negatively coded comments included "baby," "me," "chips," and "cold." CONCLUSION: Understanding COVID-19 vaccine sentiment expressed on social media platforms like TikTok can be a powerful tool and resource for public health messaging.

Everyday non-partisan fake news: Sharing behavior, platform specificity, and detection.

Concern over the impact of fake news on major socio-political events is growing. The use of deliberate misinformation is thought to have played a role in the outcome of the UK EU referendum, the 2016 US presidential election, and in the effectiveness of COVID-19 public health messaging. As a result, recent research has tended to focus on hyper-partisan (e.g., US politics; Democrat/Republican), person specific (e.g., Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump) content that incorporates emotive and hyperbolic language. However, in this study, we focus on an alternative form of fake news, across a variety of topics (e.g., Crime, Immigration, and Health), that avoids these characteristics, and which may therefore be more pervasive and difficult to detect. In a three-part study, we examined participants sharing intentions for fake news (including platform preference; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp), their ability to explicitly detect fake news, and whether individual differences on psychological measures of critical thinking ability, rational thinking, and emotional stability predict sharing behavior and detection ability. The results show that even our well-informed sample (political science students) were not immune to the effects of fake news, some issues (e.g., health and crime) were more likely to be shared than others (e.g., immigration), and on specific platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook). In addition, we show that individual differences in emotional stability appears to be a key factor in sharing behavior, while rational thinking aptitude was key to fake news detection. Taken together, this study provides novel data that can be used to support targeted fake news interventions, suggesting possible news topic, sharing behavior, and platform specific insights. Such interventions, and implications for government policy, education, and social media companies are discussed.

Evaluation of the Spanish-Language Cancer Educational Webinar Series "Vamos a educarnos contra el cáncer" with the RE-AIM Framework.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare for patients with chronic diseases, including cancer. Barriers to healthcare increased, especially for racial and ethnic minorities. While many institutions developed webinars to educate community members, few webinars used a community-based participatory approach, employed a theory-based engagement design, and were evaluated. This manuscript reports the outcomes of "Vamos a educarnos contra el cáncer," a 2021 webinar series. Monthly educational webinars were conducted in Spanish on cancer-related topics. The presentations were delivered by Spanish-speaking content experts from different organizations. Webinars were conducted using the video conferencing platform Zoom. Polls were launched during the webinar to collect data and evaluate each webinar. The RE-AIM model of reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance was used to evaluate the series. The SAS Analytics Software was used for analysis and data management. Two hundred ninety-seven people participated with over 3000 views of the webinar recordings (Reach); 90% rated the sessions as good or excellent (Effectiveness); 86% agreed to adopt or improve a cancer-related behavior, and 90% reported willingness to adopt or improve a cancer-related action for someone else (Adoption); 92% reported feeling engaged (Implementation). The series has produced a resource library, manual of operations, and agreement of the Hispanic/Latino Cancer Community Advisory Board (CAB) to continue the webinar series in the future (Maintenance). Overall, these results highlight the impact of this webinar series and provide a standard approach to planning, delivering, and evaluating webinars as a strategy for cancer prevention and control in a culturally appropriate manner.

Mitigating the Risk of Digital Financial Exploitation.

The article by Zhang and colleagues in this issue of The Journal calls attention to an important but underrecognized problem facing today's seniors and their loved ones. The risk of digital financial exploitation, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has risen considerably in recent years and continues to rise today. Zhang et al. provide a helpful analysis of assessment tools currently available to forensic psychiatrists for the evaluation of financial capacity. Although many of these tools were not originally intended to encompass technologically based transactions, the risks of fraud and scams associated with payment apps, social media, and electronic fund transfers are considerable and growing. Fraudsters frequently target vulnerable older adults, and victims have lost large sums through some of the more prevalent schemes. Several strategies can help to mitigate the risk of severe losses and to increase the likelihood that lost assets can be recovered. Proactive education through increased awareness will prove helpful, but given the growing sophistication of modern digital cons, such as romance scams, increased technological safeguards are warranted in the setting of reduced financial capacity. When losses do occur, there are some resources for recovery and for filing complaints against perpetrators.

Utilization of Instagram by Ophthalmology Residency Programs in the Era of COVID-19.

Purpose: The aim of this research is to describe the use of the social media platform, Instagram, by academic ophthalmology residency programs in the United States over time and consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ophthalmology's social media presence. Methods and Subjects: This cross-sectional study was conducted online by reviewing the publicly accessible Instagram accounts of all accredited US academic ophthalmology residency programs. Main Outcomes and Measures: Number of US ophthalmology residency programs with an affiliated Instagram account were analyzed by year of creation. The content of the top six accounts with the most followers was analyzed by evaluating amount of engagement within defined post categories. Results: Of the 124 ophthalmology residency programs, 78 (62.9%) were identified as having an affiliated Instagram account, 60 accounts (48.4%) were created during the years 2020 or 2021, and 62 (50.0%) accounts focused specifically on promoting the residency training program. Of the top six accounts with the most followers, post categories that received the most engagement were "Medical" and "Group Photo", while those that received the least engagement were "Department Bulletin" and "Miscellaneous." User engagement on posts as measured by likes and comments increased across multiple post categories after January 2020. Conclusion: Social media presence of ophthalmology residency programs on Instagram increased substantially in 2020 and 2021. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic restricting in-person interactions, residency programs have used alternative platforms to reach applicants. Given the increasing use of such applications, social media will likely continue to become an important aspect of professional engagement in ophthalmology.

Examining the Public Messaging on 'Loneliness' over Social Media: An Unsupervised Machine Learning Analysis of Twitter Posts over the Past Decade.

Loneliness is an issue of public health significance. Longitudinal studies indicate that feelings of loneliness are prevalent and were exacerbated by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. With the advent of new media, more people are turning to social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit as well as online forums, e.g., loneliness forums, to seek advice and solace regarding their health and well-being. The present study therefore aimed to investigate the public messaging on loneliness via an unsupervised machine learning analysis of posts made by organisations on Twitter. We specifically examined tweets put out by organisations (companies, agencies or common interest groups) as the public may view them as more credible information as opposed to individual opinions. A total of 68,345 unique tweets in English were posted by organisations on Twitter from 1 January 2012 to 1 September 2022. These tweets were extracted and analysed using unsupervised machine learning approaches. BERTopic, a topic modelling technique that leverages state-of-the-art natural language processing, was applied to generate interpretable topics around the public messaging of loneliness and highlight the key words in the topic descriptions. The topics and topic labels were then reviewed independently by all study investigators for thematic analysis. Four key themes were uncovered, namely, the experience of loneliness, people who experience loneliness, what exacerbates loneliness and what could alleviate loneliness. Notably, a significant proportion of the tweets centred on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on loneliness. While current online interactions are largely descriptive of the complex and multifaceted problem of loneliness, more targeted prosocial messaging appears to be lacking to combat the causes of loneliness brought up in public messaging.

[Simulators and other tools in orthopedic-trauma surgery training]. / Simulatoren und andere Hilfsmittel in der orthopädisch-unfallchirurgischen Weiterbildung.

INTRODUCTION: The classic paradigm of "learning on the patient in the operating room" is more and more in conflict with the growing requirements of cost-efficient work and patient safety. With the technology available today for simulator systems, the accessibility of digital tools and the development of a metaverse as a digital meeting place result in various application scenarios and alternatives to classic orthopedic training. SIMULATORS: First VR-desktop simulations in orthopedics and traumatology were developed more than 20 years ago. VR-desktop simulators consist of a computer with a video screen and a joint model. Different instruments can be paired with this system and allow haptic feedback. With innovative software, numerous training programs can be selected, and the user receives precise feedback on their performance. Immersive VR simulators have also played an increasingly important role in recent years. OTHER DIGITAL TOOLS: The use of digital media such as audio and video podcasts as learning and information sources increased in the context of COVID-19. There is also an increasing number of orthopedic and trauma surgery topics on social media platforms. In all fields, however, there is a risk of the spread of misinformation. A quality standard must be maintained. EFFECTIVENESS AND UTILITY OF THE TRAINING: In order to evaluate simulators and their value as a training tool, it is important to comply with various validity criteria. Transfer validity plays an essential role for clinical application. Various studies demonstrate that the skills learned on simulators can also be successfully transferred to real clinical scenarios. DISCUSSION: A lack of availability, costs and high effort are limitations of classic training methods. In contrast, there are versatile use cases of VR-based simulations that are individually adapted to the trainees and cannot endanger patients. The still high acquisition costs, technical obstacles and the not yet widespread availability are limiting factors. The metaverse still offers unimaginable possibilities today to transfer VR-based applications to experimental learning methods.

Tweeting for Health Using Real-time Mining and Artificial Intelligence-Based Analytics: Design and Development of a Big Data Ecosystem for Detecting and Analyzing Misinformation on Twitter.

BACKGROUND: Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments worldwide and their citizens. However, public health officials need access to a comprehensive system capable of mining and analyzing large volumes of social media data in real time. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to design and develop a big data pipeline and ecosystem (UbiLab Misinformation Analysis System [U-MAS]) to identify and analyze false or misleading information disseminated via social media on a certain topic or set of related topics. METHODS: U-MAS is a platform-independent ecosystem developed in Python that leverages the Twitter V2 application programming interface and the Elastic Stack. The U-MAS expert system has 5 major components: data extraction framework, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model, sentiment analyzer, misinformation classification model, and Elastic Cloud deployment (indexing of data and visualizations). The data extraction framework queries the data through the Twitter V2 application programming interface, with queries identified by public health experts. The LDA topic model, sentiment analyzer, and misinformation classification model are independently trained using a small, expert-validated subset of the extracted data. These models are then incorporated into U-MAS to analyze and classify the remaining data. Finally, the analyzed data are loaded into an index in the Elastic Cloud deployment and can then be presented on dashboards with advanced visualizations and analytics pertinent to infodemiology and infoveillance analysis. RESULTS: U-MAS performed efficiently and accurately. Independent investigators have successfully used the system to extract significant insights into a fluoride-related health misinformation use case (2016 to 2021). The system is currently used for a vaccine hesitancy use case (2007 to 2022) and a heat wave-related illnesses use case (2011 to 2022). Each component in the system for the fluoride misinformation use case performed as expected. The data extraction framework handles large amounts of data within short periods. The LDA topic models achieved relatively high coherence values (0.54), and the predicted topics were accurate and befitting to the data. The sentiment analyzer performed at a correlation coefficient of 0.72 but could be improved in further iterations. The misinformation classifier attained a satisfactory correlation coefficient of 0.82 against expert-validated data. Moreover, the output dashboard and analytics hosted on the Elastic Cloud deployment are intuitive for researchers without a technical background and comprehensive in their visualization and analytics capabilities. In fact, the investigators of the fluoride misinformation use case have successfully used the system to extract interesting and important insights into public health, which have been published separately. CONCLUSIONS: The novel U-MAS pipeline has the potential to detect and analyze misleading information related to a particular topic or set of related topics.

Age, Loneliness, and Social Media Use in Adults during COVID-19: A Latent Profile Analysis.

Loneliness has been linked to morbidity and mortality across the lifespan. Social media could reduce loneliness, though research on the relation between social media and loneliness has been inconclusive. This study used person-centered analyses to elucidate the inconsistencies in the literature and examine the possible role technology barriers played in the relation between social media use and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (n = 929; M age = 57.58 ± 17.33) responded to a series of online questions covering demographics, loneliness, technology barriers, and social media use (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) across a range of devices (e.g., computer, smartphone, etc.). A latent profile analysis was conducted to identify distinct profiles of social media use, loneliness patterns, and age. Results yielded five distinct profiles characterized that showed no systematic associations among age, social media use, and loneliness. Demographic characteristics and technology barriers also differed between profiles and were associated with loneliness. In conclusion, person-centered analyses demonstrated distinct groups of older and younger adults that differed on social media use and loneliness and may offer more fruitful insights over variable-centered approaches (e.g., regression/correlation). Technology barriers may be a viable target for reducing loneliness in adults.

Mitigating misinformation about the COVID-19 infodemic on social media: A conceptual framework.

During coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the term 'infodemic' was used to depict the abundance of information about COVID-19 on social media that may overwhelm users, as well as misinformation about the virus because of the lack of authentication of information posted on social media. Both the World Health Organization and United Nations have warned that infodemics can become a severe threat to health care if misinformation on social media is not addressed in a timely manner. The objective of this study was to develop a conceptual framework that can be used to mitigate misinformation about the COVID-19 infodemic on social media. A structured literature review of purposively sampled scholarly publications from academic databases was conducted. The inclusion criteria chosen were scholarly papers that investigated infodemics on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic in the past 4 years, which were analysed using thematic and content analysis. The conceptual framework used Activity Theory as the theoretical foundation. The framework identifies a set of strategies and activities for both social media platforms and users to mitigate misinformation on social media during a pandemic. This study, therefore, recommends that stakeholders utilise the developed framework on social media to reduce the spread of misinformation. Contribution: Based on the literature review, there are negative health outcomes during a social media infodemic because of the spread of misinformation on social media. The study concluded that by implementing a set of strategies and activities identified through the framework, health information can be managed on social media to improve health outcomes.

Mediating Roles of Fear of Missing Out and Boredom Proneness on Psychological Distress and Social Media Addiction Among Indian Adolescents.

Objective: The closure of schools and other educational institutes around the world has been one of the consequences of the COVID-19 and has resulted in online teaching. To facilitate online teaching, there has been an increase in the use of smartphones and tablets among adolescents. However, such enhancement in technology use may put many adolescents at the risk of problematic use of social media. Consequently, the present study explored the direct relationship of psychological distress with social media addiction. The relationship between the two was also assessed indirectly via the fear of missing out (FoMO) and boredom proneness. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 505 Indian adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, studying in grades 7 to 12. Standardized tools (with some modifications to suit the context of the present study) were used to collect data. Results: The results showed significant positive associations between psychological distress, social media addiction, FoMO, and boredom proneness. Psychological distress was found to be a significant predictor of social media addiction. Moreover, FoMO and boredom proneness partially mediated the relationships between psychological distress and social media addiction. Discussion: The present study is the first to provide evidence for the specific pathways of FoMO and boredom proneness in the relationships between psychological distress and social media addiction.

Effect of a mobile app chatbot and an interactive small-group webinar on COVID-19 vaccine intention and confidence in Japan: a randomised controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: We investigated the effect of social media-based interventions on COVID-19 vaccine intention (VI) and confidence in Japan. METHODS: We conducted a three-arm randomised controlled trial between 5 November 2021 and 9 January 2022 during a low incidence (<1000/day) of COVID-19 in Japan in the midst of the second and the third waves. Japanese citizens aged ≥20 who had not received any COVID-19 vaccine and did not intend to be vaccinated were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups: (1) a control group, (2) a group using a mobile app chatbot providing information on COVID-19 vaccines and (3) a group using interactive webinars with health professionals. VI and predefined Vaccine Confidence Index (VCI) measuring confidence in the importance, safety and effectiveness were compared before and after the interventions under intention-to-treat principle. Logistic regression models were used to investigate the effect of each intervention on postintervention VI and changes of VCI compared with control. RESULTS: Among 386 participants in each group, 359 (93.0%), 231 (59.8%) and 207 (53.6%) completed the postsurvey for the control, chatbot and webinar groups, respectively. The average duration between the intervention and the postsurvey was 32 days in chatbot group and 27 days in webinar group. VI increased from 0% to 18.5% (95% CI 14.5%, 22.5%) in control group, 15.4% (95% CI 10.8%, 20.1%) in chatbot group and 19.7% (95% CI 14.5%, 24.9%) in webinar group without significant difference (OR for improvement=0.8 (95% CI 0.5, 1.3), p=0.33 between chatbot and control, OR=1.1 (95% CI 0.7, 1.6), p=0.73 between webinar and control). VCI change tended to be larger in chatbot group compared with control group without significant difference (3.3% vs -2.5% in importance, OR for improvement=1.3 (95% CI 0.9, 2.0), p=0.18; 2.5% vs 1.9% in safety, OR=1.1 (95% CI 0.7, 1.9), p=0.62; -2.4% vs -7.6% in effectiveness, OR=1.4 (95% CI 0.9, 2.1), p=0.09). Improvement in VCI was larger in webinar group compared with control group for importance (7.8% vs -2.5%, OR=1.8 (95% CI 1.2, 2.8), p<0.01), effectiveness (6.4% vs -7.6%, OR=2.2 (95% CI 1.4, 3.4), p<0.01) and safety (6.0% vs 1.9%, OR=1.6 (95% CI 1.0, 2.6), p=0.08). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that neither the chatbot nor the webinar changed VI importantly compared with control. Interactive webinars could be an effective tool to change vaccine confidence. Further study is needed to identify risk factors associated with decreased vaccine confidence and investigate what intervention can increase VI and vaccine confidence for COVID-19 vaccines. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: UMIN000045747.

Fostering mask-wearing with virality metrics and social media literacy: evidence from the U.S. and Korea.

Although social media can pose threats to the public health by spreading misinformation and causing confusion, they can also provide wider access to health information and opportunities for health surveillance. The current study investigates the ways in which preventive health behaviors and norms can be promoted on social media by analyzing data from surveys and experiments conducted in the U.S. and South Korea. Survey results suggest that the pathway from social media use for COVID-19 information to mask-wearing behavior through mask-wearing norms emerges only among individuals with strong perceived social media literacy in the U.S. Experimental findings show that wear-a-mask campaign posts on social media foster mask-wearing norms and behavioral intention when they come with large (vs. small) virality metrics (e.g., Likes, shares) in both the U.S. and South Korea. Additionally, American users are more willing to engage with posts that come with supportive (vs. mixed) comments by Liking, sharing and commenting. The results highlight the need to cultivate social media literacy and opportunities for exploiting social media virality metrics for promoting public health norms and behaviors.

Does social media usage ameliorate loneliness in rural youth? A cross sectional pilot study.

AIM: To investigate the relationship between social media use and loneliness and psychological wellbeing of youth in rural New South Wales. DESIGN: This was a web-based cross-sectional survey. METHODS: The survey consisted of 33 items including demography (12 items), participants' social media use (9 items), mood and anxiety (6 items), perceived loneliness (6 items), the impact of COVID-19 on social media usage or perceived loneliness (2 items). The participants' mood and anxiety were evaluated using the psychological distress tool (K6), while loneliness was measured using the De Jong Gierveld 6-item scale. Total loneliness and psychological distress scores were compared between demographic variables. RESULTS: A total of 47 participants, aged 16-24 years took part in the study. The majority were women (68%) and many had K6 score that was indicative of psychological distress (68%). About half of the participants indicated that Facebook (FB) was their most used social media platform and two in five participants were on social media within 10 min of waking up each day, about 30% spent more than 20 h per week on social media, and more than two-third sent private messages, images, or videos, multiple times a day. The mean loneliness score was 2.89 (range, 0 to 6), with 0 being 'not lonely' and 6 being 'intense social loneliness'. One-way ANOVA and χ2 test results showed that those who used FB most frequently had significantly higher mean scores for loneliness compared to those that used other social media platforms (p = 0.015). Linear regression analysis revealed that those who commonly used FB were more likely to report higher loneliness scores (coefficient = -1.45, 95%CI -2.63, -0.28, p = 0.017), while gender (p = 0.039), age (p = 0.048), household composition (p = 0.023), and education level (p = 0.014) were associated with severe psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: The study found that social media usage, particularly FB, as measured by time used and active or passive engagement with the medium, was significantly linked to loneliness, with some impact on psychological distress. Social media use within ten minutes of waking increased the likelihood of psychological distress. However, neither loneliness nor psychological distress were associated with rurality among the rural youth in this study.

The hybrid political role of feminism on Twitter during COVID-19: SISMA Mujer in Colombia.

Twitter proved to be strategic for the dissemination of information, and for the activation of feminist social movements. This article identifies the patterns of representation around feminist movements on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the discourse around a Colombian NGO known as Sisma Mujer, in a corpus of 4415 tweets posted during the first year of COVID-19. The results showed five significant topic categories: gender-based violence, women in peacebuilding, women's human rights, gender equality, and social protest. This activity re-contextualized the online activism of this movement into a new, hybrid role with important political implications for the social movement. Our analysis highlights this role by pointing out how feminist activists framed gender-based violence to generate a discourse on Twitter.