Exploring Reddit conversations about mental health difficulties among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to explore conversations about mental health difficulties by Reddit users who posted within college subreddits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants: Data were collected from the subreddits of 22 California campuses, representing 113,579 anonymous members. Using the following search terms, we retrieved 577 posts (ie, 268 original posts and 309 replies): COVID, Coronavirus, Quarantine, Pandemic, Anxiety, Anxious, Depressed, Depression, Overwhelmed, Stress, and Stressed. Methods: We used inductive, thematic data analysis to explore themes within posts and replies dated from 3/16/2020 to 3/16/2021. Results: We identified the following themes: 1) the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted engagement with learning; 2) remote learning has exacerbated students’ mental health difficulties; and 3) students provide and receive social support online. Conclusions: These findings have implications that are particularly relevant as campuses are faced with continuous decisions related to repopulation.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• mental health
• social support

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United State of America and received approval from the, California State University Long Beach.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under Grant 1R15DA044458-01A1; and National Institute of General Medical Sciences under Grants 5UL1GM118979; 5TL4GM118980; 5RL5GM118978; 8UL1GM118979-02.