Social Media & Mental Health: A Narrative Study on Bangladesh during the Lockdown time of COVID-19 Pandemic

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue I, January 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Social Media & Mental Health: A Narrative Study on Bangladesh during the Lockdown time of COVID-19 Pandemic

Amrita Nandy^1*, Mohona Biswas ², Joysree Das ^3
1 Faculty of Business Administration, BGC Trust University Bangladesh, Chandanaish-4381, Chattagram, Bangladesh
² Faculty of Business administration, Rangamati Science & Technology University, Rangamati-4500, Bangladesh
³Department of Pharmacy, BGC Trust University Bangladesh, Chandanaish-4381, Chattagram, Bangladesh
* Corresponding author

Abstract
Purpose: This study sheds light on the use of social media and its effects on mental health during the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh.
Methodology: A quantitative method has been followed to conduct the research. The purposive sampling method is adopted to gather responses from respondents through survey questionnaires during the lockdown period (May-July, 2021). The target populace is the respondents from the age of 18-60 who are highly active on social media in Bangladesh. In the end, 601 responses are obtained and a narrative approach has been used to assess the effects from various aspects like gender, occupation, and usage.
Findings: The study shows social media has a vast effect on people’s mental health during the lockdown time in Bangladesh. 80.7% of the sample use this media as a platform for social communication and 37% of respondents believe that the overall effects of social media are positive during this session. Additionally, research highlights a great engagement of young people in social media in Bangladesh which needs to restrain positively as this might hamper their mental health. Furthermore, results indicate that social media needs to respond more realistically and responsibly in time.
Implications: Being a strong and popular mode of communication as well as information, the governmental body can come across to formulate accurate policies in order to eradicate the negative consequences of social media during this pandemic. Recommendations suggested in this paper might be fruitful to develop a healthy communication platform even after the epidemic session in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Social Media; Bangladesh; Mental Health; Youth; COVID-19.

1. Introduction

Vaccination of COVID-19 or coronavirus has started in many countries as well as in Bangladesh. The disease, coronavirus (COVID-19) first identified at the end of December 19, 2019 in Wuhan city, China, and within a very short time it spreads worldwide. There are more than 4,163,955 mortalities and about 194,252,788 people globally affected by Coronavirus until July 24, 2021, In Bangladesh, the first case of the COVID-19 attack was identified in March of 2020 (Anam, 2020). There have been 1,146,564 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 18,851 deaths till 23 July 2021 (WHO Coronavirus COVID-19) Dashboard with Vaccination Data, 2021) and the number is mounting from time to time. Therefore, the Government of Bangladesh has undertaken various steps to neutralize the situation such as nationwide lockdown, closing all the government and private offices as well as the educational sector. The experience of social distancing and restrictions during lockdown exacerbated pessimistic feelings (Banerjee & Rai, 2020; Porcelli, 2020) and thus the mental health is being affected. During this pandemic public have to know proper information about COVID-19 situation, symptoms of disease and up to date prevention techniques and for all of these, social media is the fast and effective platform for inquiring, and sharing health-related announcement towards the public (Bastani & Bahrami, 2020; Zhao & Zhang, 2017).

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