In what ways does social media help college students cope during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, communities were forced to isolate themselves in their homes and take many safety precautions. Through this isolation, people experienced a lack of social interactions on a daily basis and increased boredom. Due to the new feelings of the pandemic experience, many found themselves to be engaging significantly more with technology and social media. Doing so helped many to interact with others or spend their extra time. Since people were engaging so much more with technology, there were distinct positive and negative outcomes. Some social media use helped cope with experiencing feelings of isolation by the COVID-19 pandemic, while it may have caused feelings of anxiety for others. Engaging with others helped humanize the experience of relying on social media as a replacement for receiving human interaction on a daily basis (Zhen, 2021). College students were specifically impacted by isolation in a social manner, but were also affected in other areas such as in their academic life. Social media became a critical tool for college students in coping with the challenges of the pandemic (Zhao, 2020). This paper will explore some of the ways in which social media has helped college students cope during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it may have had more negative effects on others. This will be explored through reviewing current literature and research. Research findings will be compared to interviews conducted for the purpose of this project. Three different college students were interviewed and asked a series of questions regarding their personal experience with COVID-19, mental health, and social media. The interview responses will be reviewed according to current research to spot any similarities in findings.