Thus, most international students had no other option than to resort to social media, using it as a tool to stay connected with their families and social networks in their home countries and also access COVID-19-related information. In this era of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of social media has particularly become very valuable in the lives of international students due to the several lockdown restrictions imposed by most school authorities in the bid to curtail the spread of the virus. Previous studies have further shown that the use of social media reduces barriers to group interactions and telecommunications among students, supports collaborative learning activities, encourages self-learning, and fosters students’ engagement and motivation. Undoubtedly, international students use social media to socialize, educate, and constantly communicate with their families and friends. Īmong the popular groups of people familiar with social media is the youth, specifically, students studying abroad. Consequently, this situation has resulted in many people turning to and spending extra time on social media to maintain some semblance of social network systems and search for relevant information concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. These measures were targeted at discouraging large gatherings and encouraging citizens to stay at home as much as possible, eliminating an essential stress management tool: social support systems. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019, public health officials, institutions, and other governmental organizations have instituted widespread lockdowns and other rigorous and stringent measures to curtail the spread of the virus among their populations. In risk communication during health crises, the use of social media as a source of delivering and receiving health information alerts, conveying public opinions and attitudes on issues related to infectious diseases, public health, and behavioral medicine has, over the past decade, expanded tremendously. Thus, gaining a deeper understanding of this relationship could enable them to harness social media and use it as a valuable tool to overcome the social distancing constraints in COVID-19. Given the nature of social media among international students, who are also prone to suffering from anxiety and depression associated with social media use, the positive effect of social media use and everyday emotion, especially in COVID-19, has important implications for international students’ education stakeholders. Moderating effects revealed that age and sex do not significantly moderate the relationship between social media use and everyday emotion in COVID-19.

Additionally, self-rated anxiety and depression associated with social media use among international students were generally mild ( n = 249, 52.50% and n = 350, 73.80%, respectively). This study showed a significant positive relationship between social media use and everyday emotion (B = 0.34, 95% CI (0.26, 0.44)). Of the total responses received, 474 were further analyzed employing the Partial Least Squares Path Modelling (PLS-PM).

Using a structured online questionnaire based on modified questions from the generalized anxiety disorder 7 (GAD-7) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) and social media use instruments, data were collected from 480 participants. Thus, this study sought to examine the impact of social media use on the everyday emotion of international students in China during COVID-19. However, the implications of social media use on the everyday emotion (anxiety and depression) of users especially, international students, are not well understood. Social media has become a valuable tool in providing an opportunity to stay in touch with one’s social networks, providing reassurance and practical advice to individuals to pre-empt panic and rumors in COVID-19.

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