Sixteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The current pilot study aims to offer an explanation of the trends in self-representation on social media, including social networking sites and social messaging platforms, as well as their potential relationship to mental health. The research adds greatly to the understanding of the mental health contexts underlying social media use and self-representation and helps to broaden the knowledge on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. This topic requires an interdisciplinary approach from various fields, such as sociology, psychology, and communication and media studies. An online survey has proven to be the most suitable method for data collection of self-perceived social media usage, self-representation habits, and mental health assessment. The three-step survey included the same 20 questions over three separate data collection periods during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Hungary between April 22, 2020, and April 4, 2021. According to the results, (1) time spent on social media and (2) willingness to share self-representative content have both increased during the pandemic waves and are associated with (3) higher and growing risk of major depressive disorder among the most active sharers, as reported by the embedded PHQ-2 questionnaire. In conclusion, the current study contributes significantly to the mounting evidence of the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its interaction with other global phenomena such as expanding social media usage and changing self-representation patterns.