Influence of social media on psychological health of youth during COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT Medical undergraduates, being away from their institutes due to the lockdown, are at a greater risk of being affected by the negative news, which may easily instill fear and panic among them. Therefore, the present study was planned with the objective to study the effects of media exposure on the psychological health of undergraduate medical students at a tertiary health institute. To assess the psychological effects of social media/media use and coping mechanisms adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tertiary care teaching Institute and Cross-sectional study. It is a cross-sectional observational study performed among (under graduate) UG students, which was assessed using a pre-tested questionnaire including the pre-validated DASS-21 scale. Data collected was entered in MS Excel. Descriptive statistics and correlation of the study variables were analyzed while controlling for demographics using Epi-info software version 7.2.2. It was observed that around one-fifth of the participants have moderate depression, followed by mild 10.97%; one-fifth of the participants have moderate levels of anxiety 20.41% followed by extremely severe anxiety 13.27% and about two-thirds of the study participants having no stress 64.29% followed by mild stress 14.80% and moderate stress 9.69%. There was a significant psychological impact of the use of social media among young populations, particularly anxiety, stress, and depression with exposure to negative news and reports on social media platforms.