Experience Pandemic Fatigue? Social Media Use May Play a Role: Testing a Model of Pandemic Fatigue Development from a Social Media Perspective

ABSTRACT

Recently, the World Health Organization noted the increasing signs of pandemic fatigue around the world and repeatedly warned the public to continue to stay cautious. The current study explores whether social media use plays a role in the formation and development of pandemic fatigue. Drawing on a survey of 849 social media users in China, the findings indicated that different social media behaviors play different roles in affecting pandemic fatigue. Specifically, social interaction use is negatively associated with pandemic fatigue, mediated by more social support and reduced hopelessness. Active content use contributes to pandemic fatigue development, an association explained by information overload and desensitization. Notably, passive content use is found to trigger reactance but is negatively associated with pandemic fatigue, which is fully mediated by reduced information overload. This study seeks to understand how pandemic fatigue is associated with social media use and to explicate the underlying mechanism. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There was no formal IRB or equivalent committee in our affiliation when conducting the study, which is common in Chinese universities. Instead, the study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.