The Impact of COVID-19 News Consumption on Optimism and Mental Health

Abstract

Not Mean, Just Average Literature Review Introduction "Not Mean, Just Average" group aims at studying the relationship between optimism, pessimism, and the news. Following the current COVID-19 pandemic, most global news channels have turned their attention to creating awareness of this disease's changing dynamics. The pandemic is claiming people's lives and leaving adverse effects on the economy in general. Many people have turned their full attention to any emerging news regarding the pandemic, which enhances Anxiety and addiction, which can translate into mental disorders. Therefore, studying this topic is of great relevance. It will offer insights on the impact of media news, media consumption, and content consumed on the audiences’ general outlook of life. It is a topic that will create awareness on the extent to which media engagement correlates with dispositional optimism and pessimism amongst its active audiences. The correlation between time spent engaging with news outlets and outlook on life serves as the group's main research question. The group aims at responding to the research as mentioned above question through a thorough analysis of 16 articles from legitimate sources that address the relationship between media news and outlook of life from different perspectives. Among the main sources of the 16 articles used in this essay include two articles from Google Scholar, two from Research gate, two from Science direct, one from APA Psych net, one from U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, % from Auraria Library and finally 3artiecles from Pub Med. The primary themes discussed in this literature review include media news/content on mental health, Covid-19 news on mental health, media consumption/time spent, and general outlook on life and effects of optimism and pessimism on mood. Media news/content on mental health Media can be defined as a potential platform concerning equipping its target audience with the emerging news, whether good or bad news, regardless of the news impact on the same audiences. Most media houses aim to present the most recent news to their target audience in the most convenient manner to enhance the delivery of the message/content as intended. However, some news tends to be so addictive, thus creating addiction and Anxiety amongst the audiences, which translates into mental problems amongst many of the same audiences in a great manner. According to a report compiled by McNaughton-cassill (2001), it is clear that watching negative news has adverse effects on the audiences, such as stress. Based on their study, these authors noted that watching negative news enhances Anxiety amongst the audiences, which later translates into lower levels of optimism which exposes the victims to higher levels of becoming mentally depressed. On the other hand, Naeem et al. (2012) argue that watching traumatic news causes PSTD symptoms, translating to terminal mental problems for the viewers. Based on their research on participants whose exposure to such news was defined, these authors confirmed that watching violent news has adverse effects on the mental well-being of the viewer, which they attributed to addiction and the Anxiety to watch, which can lead to their urge to try what they see leading to mental trauma. Unfortunately, even good news affects viewers' mentality explained by Hopkinson (2007). Hopkinson argues that watching news regardless of whether good or bad poses negative psychological effects to the viewer regardless of incorporating interventions like relaxation to buffer the viewer. The author attributes the rising levels of anxiety and mood disturbances on viewers to associated mental health like depression and stresses that most viewers experience, whose remedy is a potential intervention to neutralize the adverse factors. Finally, Shensha et al. (2017) attribute social media use to the rising depressive symptoms amongst U.S. young adults. Based on their report, Shensha and his counterparts argue that most young people are addicted to social media, which raises their Anxiety towards any emerging news causing psychological and mental torture to such a population in a great manner. All the four articles view addiction and Anxiety as the potential forces that leave many media news viewer leads many viewers to become mentally handicapped, thus the need for detachments. Covid-19 and mental health 2020 can be defined as a year that the media houses concentrated so much on Covid-19 as an alarming pandemic worldwide. Many people have, for this reason, formed the habit of sticking to media platforms to get the latest news regarding the pandemic. In return, addiction and Anxiety serve as a huge blow to the same audiences leading to stressing and depressing moments for many. In their report, Stainback, Hearne, and Trieu (2020) argue that Covid-19 news has caused adverse effects on people's mental health without noticing such effects. It is no news that the pandemic has to lead many people to lose jobs while others have been forced to work from home. For this reason, many people spend most of their time and home, and the urge to learn of any news regarding the pandemic leads them to engage in constant news watching. Based on this researcher, the pandemic news exposes the viewers/listeners to current trends on its effects on peoples' lives, economy, new symptoms, among other news that leaves them with mixed reactions. The urge to learn more and more about such disastrous news defines the addiction and Anxiety of such content regardless of the adverse effect on the target audience. For this reason, these researchers conclude that watching Covid-19 news has proved to be a potential force to mentally related problems like depression and anxiety disorder which calls for viewers/listeners withdrawals. Eden et al. (2020) further add on this theme, citing that most U.S. college students have expressed an increase in media use ever since the emergence of the pandemic. The urge to learn when people will abandon the new normal rule has lead the student population to spend so much time searching for the latest news regarding the pandemic, which interprets increased anxiety levels. Such Anxiety translates into mental disorders amongst such a population. However, these authors concluded that though Anxiety correlated with more media use amongst the U.S. college students, optimism positively correlated with mental health and flourishing. The two articles relate Covid-19 news to mental disturbances amongst its audiences as attributed to the rising levels of Anxiety and addiction that expose such audiences to all times. Media consumption/content and general outlook of life Media consumption implies the content and time one devoted to consuming the message provided by the media news. Unfortunately, media news tends to be so addictive, leading many people to spend so much time searching on the internet, watching televisions, and listening to radios to remain updated on their interest topics. However, such an urge enhances addiction and Anxiety, which leads to mental problems amongst many media news lovers. It is important to understand people's media consumption and its relation to people's general outlook on life, as argued by (Karim et al., 2020). Based on their article, these authors found a relationship between time spent on social media and mental health. Their study...