Estefan Lopez

Abstract

[Name] [University] PSYC 3090-002 [Instructor Name] April 11, 2021 Introduction Experiencing a pandemic during a time period where the use of technology is involved in our everyday lives can have its benefits and disadvantages. Our goal is to investigate the relationship between media exposure and outlook on life. As a group, we will evaluate time spent on media, type of media, frequency of media engagement, and genre of news in relation to levels of optimism and pessimism using part of a previously standardized questionnaire on life orientation. We predict that increased engagement with the media will be associated with higher levels of pessimism. Our group reviewed a total of 16 articles, which fall into 3 different themes; media leading to depression, stress and mental Health. Mental health Mass media is connected to the increasing mental health issues. Due to the pandemic, the time spend in watching television and browsing through social media has greatly increased making it easy for the media to control our emotions, behaviour and view of life. People have different objectives of posting content on social media; some post to attract attention while others provide emotional support. The outcome of these posts can grant social support or trigger mental health symptoms. It means not all media activities contribute to mental issues since some are beneficial. Mass media has influential effect on our prospects and objectives in life. It influences mental health since it impacts our thinking, behaviour, and emotions (Srivastava et. al, 2018). The way we use the media determines our expectations and standards for our way of life, for instance people in India are increasingly using new media technology to stay in touch with family and friends, to use it for business, for entertainment, and also acquiring information about national/world events (Srivastava et. al, 2018). It is also evident that the use of media is increasing and becoming persistent after the exposure of COVID-19 pandemic (Stainback et. al, 2020). Many people across the globe began watching or reading news about the current pandemic with the objective of learning about the virus, precautions and latest development from health organisations. With the lockdown, using the media has become a constant activity that has been proven to negatively affect a person’s mental health (Stainback et. al, 2020). This is due to the daily updates about the dead and deteriorating economy that causes people to over think and experience mental torture to the listeners. The excessive use of social media can intensify mental health problems. People who constantly use social media are likely to develop sedentary behaviour and avoid face to face conversations, (Karim et. al, 2020). This behaviour is linked to mental health since majority of these people become addicted to social media activity. This increases the risk of social anxiety that can eventually affect mental health. However, other studies have identified the beneficial impact of using media. The beneficial impact of using the media can be evaluated by examining the time spent engaging with social media, the importance of social media in everyday life and the alarming posts, (Berryman et. al, 2018). Some of the outcome of this examination can be social support, loneliness, empathy and mental health symptoms. This demonstrates that not all negative effects of using social media can influence the mental health of a person. Stress Media can cause stress and most significantly optimism and pessimism. Since media content can be positive or negative, for instance watching traumatising news or a nice movie, the impact will be different. Research shows how COVID-19 has increased time spend on using the media by college students, adults and children. The constant watching of negative news about the virus has increased the anxiety level of people. The reason is connected to users feeling stressed and frustrated when they see no optimistic development about the virus. It means COVID-19 news causes low levels of optimism and increases anxiety. Watching news in the television can cause psychological problems. The psychological problems can increase level of anxiety and mood swings leading to a lot of stress (Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007). People should divert their focus from the television after experiencing slight discomfort. However, even after diverting attention from watching news, it will still take a lot of time for a tensed viewer to reconnect positive emotions. The article suggests progressive relaxation as an effective way of helping people relieve the tension experienced (Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007). This intervention is necessary since it can prevent anxiety attacks and mood interruptions. Furthermore, traumatic events on television are also stress triggers for some people (Naeem et. al, 2012). For instance, when a person diagnosed with PTSD decides to watch violent activities on television for one week, the symptoms of PTSD can easily be triggered (Naeema et. al, 2007). This explanation demonstrates the difference between traumatic actions at personal level and watching it on television. It is an emphasis that media has a huge impact on influencing the mind of an individual to act in certain ways. Media can use one story to illustrate optimistic view of the world and stress. Television news provides information that shows the concept of optimism gap that sometimes result to stress and pressure (McNaughton, 2002). This is because occasionally, news contains details about developed and developing countries, economy, current disaster and global achievements. This exposure from the media can create awareness of economic diversity that exist in the world (McNaughton, 2020). The news will be received by two parties where one side will be confident of the progress while the other will be pressured to work hard. This is where optimism gap will cause stress. The stress level can be controlled by reading new stories about mental health, (Corrigan, et. al, 2013). The stories can be based on recovery and therapy for mental illnesses such as stress. These recovery articles are effective in reducing stigma attached...