Social Media Reveals Psychosocial Effects of the COVID 19 Pandemic

Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused several disruptions in personal and collective lives worldwide. The uncertainties surrounding the pandemic have also led to multi-faceted mental health concerns, which can be exacerbated with precautionary measures such as social distancing and self-quarantining, as well as societal impacts such as economic downturn and job loss. Despite noting this as a mental health tsunami, the psychological effects of the COVID-19 crisis remains unexplored at scale. Consequently, public health stakeholders are currently limited in identifying ways to provide timely and tailored support during these circumstances. Objective: Our work aims to provide insights regarding people9s psychosocial concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging social media data. We aim to study the temporal and linguistic changes in symptomatic mental health and support-seeking expressions in the pandemic context. Methods: We obtain 60M Twitter streaming posts originating from the U.S. from March, 24 to May, 25, 2020, and compare these with 40M posts from a comparable period in 2019 to causally attribute the effect of COVID-19 on people9s social media self-disclosure. Using these datasets, we study people9s self-disclosure on social media in terms of symptomatic mental health concerns and expressions seeking support. We employ transfer learning classifiers that identify the social media language indicative of mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, stress, and suicidal ideation) and support (emotional and informational support). We then examine the changes in …