Messages posted on social media at the start of the pandemic were much more negative than those posted during a normal period.
- Researchers have analyzed the morale of individuals through their messages published on social networks, a better method according to them than opinion polls.
- In 18% of the countries analyzed, the inhabitants have still not regained the morale they had before the pandemic.
Confinement, health restrictions, illness… At the start of the pandemic, all the measures taken to stem the epidemic had an impact on the morale of citizens. Proof of this is, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT), the messages posted on social networks at this time were much more negative than those posted before the epidemic.
654 million messages analyzed
To arrive at these results, the MIT team analyzed 654 million messages posted on social networks between January 1, 2020 and May 31, 2020 by individuals living in more than a hundred countries. Their aim was to determine how badly people’s morale had been affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Thus, they analyzed all these messages using natural language processing software and compared them with others sent in normal times, without a pandemic.
The pandemic impacts morale more than natural disasters
In previous work, scientists had studied the impact of pollution, extreme weather conditions and natural disasters on public opinion. They thus compared the messages published by Internet users during the pandemic to those posted during these other events. Result: the pandemic had more psychological consequences on people. “The reaction (psychological) to the pandemic was three to four times stronger than that generated by extreme temperaturesexplains Yichun Fan, one of the authors. The pandemic shock is even greater than when there is a hurricane in an area.”
A greater change in morale than that due to the return to work
The researchers also observed that as a general rule, that is to say outside of epidemic periods, people had more optimistic messages on weekends than on Mondays. They therefore wanted to compare this difference between rest days and the start of the week to the variation in the morale of individuals due to Covid-19. Thus, they estimate that the difference is 4.7 times greater when it is due to Covid-19 than when it is due to the return to work. “The conclusion is that the pandemic has caused a very strong emotional toll, four to five times greater than the change in morale observed during a normal week.“develops Siqi Zheng, one of the authors of this work.
The double consequence of confinement
Another lesson from this work: periods of confinement have not had a very significant impact on people’s morale. “On the one hand, with these policies people felt safer, less afraidexplains Siqi Zheng. On the other hand, during the confinement you could not have social activities, it is another emotional stress. The impact of containment policies can be analyzed in these two ways.
Differences between countries
The scientists also observed variations between the countries studied. Thus, the most impacted populations were those living in Australia, Spain, Colombia and the United Kingdom. Conversely, in Greece, Bahrain, Botswana, Oman and Tunisia, residents were less affected by the pandemic. Finally, some countries have taken up to 29 days to recover half of the loss of morale they have suffered from the pandemic.
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