The Anxiety of the Pandemic: Binge-watching, Splurging, Sexting, Hooking Up, and Masturbating among College Students

ABSTRACT

The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly altered the lives of college students across the United States. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, college campuses were shuttered, classes moved to remote instruction, and university activities, celebrations, and events were canceled. Cast against a backdrop of uncertainty about the future, studies have documented that the pandemic has significantly increased anxiety among college students as they adjust to a “new normal.” Drawing from general strain theory, we examine the influence of specific COVID-19-related strains on a variety of changes in student behavior including binge-watching streaming services, splurging on online shipping, sexting, “hooking up” with random people, and masturbating. Results using structural equation models on data from 1,287 students at a Midwestern university show that specific sources of strain directly are related to binge-watching, online shopping, hooking up with random people, and masturbating, while anxiety was directly related to increased binge-watching, online shopping, and sexting. Anxiety mediated the pathways between some sources of strain and binge-watching and splurging on online shopping. Overall, findings highlight that the global pandemic not only induces anxiety and interrupts academic life but also carries far-reaching consequences for a wide range of behaviors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ We also performed a factor analysis to examine the factor validity of the measures. A rotated factor analysis revealed three distinct factors comprised of the identical items for each scale we describe in this section: Presence of negative stimuli (Eigenvalue = 2.58), Removal of positively valued stimuli (Eigenvalue = 1.76), and Failure to achieve positively valued goals (Eigenvalue = 1.24). Overall, this factor analysis demonstrates that each strain scale captures a distinct factor.

² Although the chi-square test statistic is significant in the models presented, it is typically unrealistic to find a non-significant chi-square test in structural equations using real data (see Browne and Robert 1993; Chen et al. 2008).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, which has core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD050959).

Notes on contributors

Thomas J. Mowen

Thomas J. Mowen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. His recent research explores non-traditional factors of crime and deviance including self-perceptions of attractiveness, paranormal beliefs, and life failures. Tom's recent work has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, and Deviant Behavior.

Amanda Heitkamp

Amanda Heitkamp is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include stigma, labeling, and deviance. Amanda's work has appeared in Deviant Behavior and Sociological Inquiry.