Psychological well-being and social media users’ behavioral online patterns in everyday life and during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Social media is an integral part of everyone’s life,meeting the needs of belonging and relaxation. Duringthe progression of the COVID-19 pandemic,the need for socialization increases, as a result of whichthe degree of user involvement increases. The purposeof the research was to theoretically substantiatethe results of an empirical study of the relationshipbetween the social media use and the psychologicalwell-being of users (N = 516) in everyday life and duringa global pandemic. Methods: standardized validpsychodiagnostic methods, author’s questionnaire,correlation and factor analyzes. Results: The researchallowed to establish the following individual characteristicsof the behavior of young users in social mediain different life circumstances. One of the researchhypotheses was the assumption that by limitingthe ability to communicate and meet with friends and relatives during self-isolation, the share of virtualcommunication will increase. During quarantine,young people, as in everyday life, prefer to watch a varietyof videos and read posts, i.e. passive use, ratherthan communication. Spending time on various socialmedia applications is a kind of coping strategy, whichbecomes a trigger for the formation of social media disorder.Due to the uncontrolled social media use duringthe period of self-isolation, young people face changesin sleep, mostly dysomnia. Excessive involvement inthe social media increases during quarantine, leadingto insomnia. Paired correlation coefficients of the subjects’complaints about “Negative changes in sleep”have 16 highly reliable relationships in the range fromr = .156 to r = .444 or ρ ≤ .015 – .0000. Conclusions: The lack of hygienic and controlled spending time onsocial media in everyday life and during self-isolationprovokes an exacerbation of anxiety, apathy, depressedmood and a sense of isolation from society. The desireof young people to endure forced isolation withoutnegative experiences leads to excessive online involvement.