Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
J Affect Disord. 2021 Aug 1;291:177-187. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.007. Epub 2021 May 15.
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Social media are increasingly pivotal as the platform where activists and observers plan, promote, and respond to collective actions. To examine how mass protests influence psychological wellbeing and distress, this study analyzed their time-dependent association during the 2019 anti-government social unrest in Hong Kong.
Consecutive day-by-day users-generated content on online forums and social network sites (SNS) from June to November 2019 was obtained. A Cantonese term-list was created to identify terms related to mass protests and psychological distress. The frequency of comments containing such terms was analyzed using time series models.
There were 3,572,665 social media comments in the investigation period. As hypothesized, the frequency of comments with mass protest terms was higher on days with mass protests than on days without. Frequency of comments with both mass protest- and psychological distress-terms was also higher on days with protests than days without. Time-lagged effect (responses on the following day) of protest-terms was found on online forums but not on SNS. Our results suggest a positive association between offline protest activities and online psychological reactions.
Social media content reveals discussions of psychological distress stemming from, or exacerbated by, social unrest. The potential mutual influences between mass protests and online reactions, as well as the functional differences between online forums and SNS in this regard are discussed. Street protests and their associated psychological distress can be readily detected on popular online forums. Mental health services should consider, and even make use of, such dynamic relationship between on- and offline activities.
社交媒体在活动家和观察者策划、宣传和响应集体行动方面的作用日益重要。为了研究大规模抗议活动如何影响心理健康和痛苦，本研究分析了 2019 年香港反政府社会动荡期间它们在时间上的关联。
本研究获取了 2019 年 6 月至 11 月期间在线论坛和社交网络服务（SNS）上连续的逐日常规用户生成内容。创建了一个粤语术语列表来识别与大规模抗议和心理困扰相关的术语。使用时间序列模型分析包含这些术语的评论的频率。
在调查期间，有 3572665 条社交媒体评论。正如假设的那样，在有大规模抗议的日子里，包含大规模抗议术语的评论频率高于没有大规模抗议的日子。在有抗议的日子里，包含大规模抗议和心理困扰术语的评论频率也更高。在在线论坛上发现了抗议术语的滞后效应（次日的反应），但在 SNS 上没有。我们的研究结果表明，线下抗议活动与线上心理反应之间存在正相关。
社交媒体内容揭示了因社会动荡而产生或加剧的心理困扰的讨论。讨论了大规模抗议和在线反应之间的潜在相互影响，以及在线论坛和 SNS 在这方面的功能差异。在流行的在线论坛上可以很容易地检测到街头抗议及其相关的心理困扰。心理健康服务机构应该考虑甚至利用线上和线下活动之间的这种动态关系。
