Women’s Social Media Behaviour: Shifts and Challenges During a Global Pandemic

With the pandemic forcing people to stay at home and limit in-person interactions, social media became a popular tool for maintaining connections and staying informed. Studies have shown that women, in particular, have been more likely to engage with news on social media than men. This may be due to a variety of factors, including differences in information-seeking behavior, social roles and responsibilities, and exposure to social media content. Women have also reported that they are motivated to stay on social media sites to maintain ties with close friends, which may have contributed to the overall increase in social media usage during the pandemic.

Longitudinal social media behaviors and experiences of women during a global pandemic

A recent study published in The Social Science Journal examines women’s experience with social media over the first year following the pandemic. Employing the Uses and Gratifications theory (U&G), the study identified the women’s potential gratifications sought by social media during the pandemic and how use over the first year may have influenced their self-reported social media behaviours and experiences.

Quantitative Results

Participants reported that their social media behaviours and experiences specifically related to COVID-19 decreased significantly between March 2020 and April 2021. This was particularly true for their social media behaviours related to emotional and personal connection and their active engagement with COVID-19 content.

Qualatative Results

Theme 1: Social media “works as an echo chamber”

Participants reported social media use during the pandemic was initially a source for news and stress relief, but became a place of polarization and reinforcement of one’s own ideas.

I have witnessed people feeding off each other’s negative energy on social media. … So much fear and divisiveness. People bullying each other to think like they do… I got sick of it. I have spent VERY little time on social media in the past few months.

Participants expressed concerns about political polarization via social media during the early weeks of the pandemic and a year later.Women explained that the “echo chamber” was amplified after March 2020 because there were multiple events on people’s minds — “the country has been very divisive on topics like COVID, [the presidential] election, and social justice issues [i.e., Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality].”

Participants explained that public health measures (e.g., “masking,” “vaccinations,” “social distancing”) became politicized and social media created these “echo chambers … tailored to give you the information that aligns with your views … contributed a lot to the divisiveness that we have now of mask or no mask or vaccine or no vaccine, racial divisions, or whatever divisions you can think of … [social media] helped to exacerbate that.”

To decrease the negativity experienced with the social media echo chamber, some participants made efforts to end, restrict, or restructure their social media use. These efforts included blocking people on their accounts, setting time limits on use, removing apps from the phones, or deactivating social media accounts permanently.

Theme 2: Connection and community

Women have traditionally taken the role of family “kin-keepers” in the physical world and online. They use social media to facilitate connection with family members and to develop a sense of community.

Participants said that social media has been a good way to stay connected to others and have brought a sense of community during the pandemic, but overtime they saw “more bad than good” and some even reported that social media use contributed to more feelings of isolation or disconnection.

Theme 3: Information and misinformation overload

In March 2020, participants found social media to be a place to find reputable up-to-date information from “the CDC” or “local health department.” Initially, participants indicated this was helpful but explained that it was “overwhelming to consume so much media about a stressful topic.”

Many participants commented on the information and misinformation on social media, and said that “being flooded with information increased their feelings of fear, anxiety, and depression.”

Participants were concerned about the spread of misinformation on social media and the lack of digital literacy of social media users to critically evaluate the truthfulness of content. While initially viewed as a place to stay connected, social media ultimately heightened people’s fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions

The study highlights that participants used and experienced social media differently from the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) to one year later (April 2021).

From a U&G perspective, results indicated that navigability and agency were affordances of social media for women to a point. Over the course of a year of the pandemic these affordances soured for most women in the study. More women started to restrict their social media use in April 2021 due to the challenges they experienced on the platforms.

The study authors recommend “the onus may be better placed on social media companies to better manage misinformation, echo chambers, and negativity within their applications during global crises.”

J. Mitchell Vaterlaus, Lori A. Spruance & Emily V. Patten (2023) Women’s longitudinal social media behaviors and experiences during a global pandemic, The Social Science Journal, DOI: 10.1080/03623319.2023.2185982