AUTHOR=Sun Xiaobei , Li Benjamin J. , Zhang Heng , Zhang Guanwen 

TITLE=Social media use for coping with stress and psychological adjustment: A transactional model of stress and coping perspective

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1140312

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1140312

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The psychological well-being of individuals has become an essential issue during the global pandemic. As a pervasive activity for individuals to pull through COVID-19, social media use may play a role in psychological well-being. Drawing on the transactional model of stress and coping, the current study investigated the relationships between COVID-19-related stressors and the use of social media to facilitate specific coping strategies. We further investigated how social media coping strategies impact users’ psychological adjustment. A two-wave survey was conducted with residents of two cities in China during government-mandated lockdowns. Results showed that perceived COVID-19 stress was related to the intensity of social media use for problem-focused coping, socioemotional coping, and mental disengagement. In addition, individuals’ psychological adjustment was positively associated with social media use for socioemotional coping and mental disengagement while negatively related to problem-focused coping. Age was also found to be a moderator of the relationship between socioemotional coping and psychological adjustment. Findings from this study suggest the need to further investigate the use of social media to cope with public health crises.