Internet information as a factor of a person’s emotional and psychological well-being

Abstract

Introduction. Information in modern society acts as a cultural tool influencing human socialisation processes. However, the amount of information consumed by a human is so extensive that it leads to information overload; its consequences on a person’s emotional and psychological well-being are not sufficiently studied, which determines the relevance of the present study. The issues of trust in mass media and human’s psychological well-being have been studied most often in modern psychological science as independent phenomena. Most often researchers focus on analysing the impact of news content on human well-being regardless of the extent of trust in it. The aim of the study was to reveal the relationship between the level of trust in digital media and a person’s emotional and psychological well-being. Materials and methods. The study involved 456 1st – 5th year students of the State University for Humanities and Social Studies (M=116, W=340, average age 19.7±2.8). The Integrative anxiety test; the Basic beliefs scale; the Psychological well-being scale were used to study one’s emotional and psychological well-being. The level of trust in mass media was measured with the use of the original questionnaire. Results. It was found that people who trust Internet media have more expressed emotional and personal problems reducing the level of their psychological well-being: anxiety about the future (p=0.004), depression (p=0.011), negative self-esteem and dissatisfaction with circumstances of their life (p=0.034). As shown by the factor analysis, the main correlatives of emotional and psychological ill-being in groups of those who trust and do not trust the media are as follows: expressed anxiety, low level of self-esteem and self-value, use of the emotional strategy for coping with stress (factor 2 “Emotional discomfort”). The ill-being of people who trust information in the Internet increases when they turn to the strategy of emotional social support in difficult situations, and the overall balance of well-being in people who do not trust the Internet can be disrupted in case of “crisis of beliefs” (factor 2 “Emotional discomfort”). Conclusion. The obtained results help to gain deeper understanding of the mechanisms of influence of Internet sources on human psychological well-being and to develop “healthy” media consumption programmes. Further research in this area can be focused on in-depth search for a set of determinant psychological variables – psychological well-being development protectors, with regard for gender, age and individual psychological characteristics of a person underlying trust in consumed information.