*4.3. Feelings about the Future*

In answering our second research question, one survey item asked participants to rate their feelings (positive vs. negative) upon reading about the current pandemic situation. Using this as the grouping variable, the Mann–Whitney U test suggested that types of ICT devices used, types of ICT as news source, and hours spent on ICTs for obtaining news were about the same in both feeling groups before and during the pandemic periods.

The same modeling approach was used to develop a logistic regression model to predict the feelings (negative feeling coded as one) about the pandemic. The final model had a Nagelkerke R of 0.21 and a Hosmer and Lemeshow Test of *χ*<sup>2</sup> (8, *N* = 392) = 3.21, *p* = 0.92, indicating good fit to the data. The classification accuracy was 82.10% for predicting the negative feeling and 50.60% for predicting the positive feeling, with the overall accuracy being 67.60%. Table 4 shows the logistic regression coefficient, Wald test, and odds ratio for each of the predictors for the feeling variable. Employing a 0.05 criterion of statistical significance, rating of neuroticism, hours spent on using virtual means for the purpose of staying socially connected with people, and viewing the pandemic situation as a threat had significant partial effects. For each one-point increase on the five-point neuroticism scale there were odds of feeling negatively by a multiplicative factor of 1.41. With one hour increase in using social media, emails, etc. to stay socially connected, participants were 1.10 times less likely to rate the feeling as negative. Participants who thought the current pandemic situation was a threat to their health and safety (yes coded as one) were 6.51 times more likely to rate their feeling about the pandemic negatively.


**Table 4.** Significant predictors for the feeling about the future variable (*n =* 392).

#### **5. Discussion**

This study was conducted in the early phase of the pandemic in the U.S. and was designed to examine the role ICT played—in terms of daily use for receiving news and staying in contact with social networks—in people's feelings about social connectedness and future anxiety while taking into account relevant personality and psychosocial factors. The results showed that the use of ICT was associated with a number of personality, health, and social factors.

Participants who rated higher on importance of social connectedness had higher ICT use, both in terms of types of ICT and time spent on ICT. This is consistent with the concept of using technology as a coping tool [30]. Social-distancing measures and stay-at-home orders took away many forms of communications and social interactions, but thanks to technology, some of them can be supplemented by ICT. Our findings also suggest that we need to have a balanced perspective on monitoring ICT use while allowing users to take advantage of the technology [10,20]. Using social media has been regarded as a negative practice as there is evidence of addiction and excessive usage [41,42]. However, when it is used for staying socially engaged and connected during COVID-19, our finding showed that people had less negative feelings about the future. Therefore, meaningful and responsible use of ICT during this pandemic, in particular social media and email, is likely to help people handle the anxiety and stress in the long run.

Prior empirical work suggests that feelings of social connectedness during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders is associated with reduced stress [30,64], and the WHO and other authorities have issued recommendations for enhancing positive feelings about being socially distanced from others [32]. Consistent with results from prior work, our findings showed that individuals higher on extraversion, belongingness, and attachment to one's

phone rated staying socially connected to be more important [45,57,65]. Even though prior work did not study the relationship between conscientiousness and social connection in the context of ICT, individuals higher on conscientiousness tend to be more cautious about health-related behaviors (e.g., exercise more) [66] and take more precautions to avoid contracting COVID-19 [47]. We argue that this approach to health and safety translates to feelings about social networks that individuals higher on conscientiousness may value the importance of and take more active actions about staying connected with others compared to those lower on conscientiousness. In addition, individuals higher on neuroticism had more future anxiety, and this finding is consistent with prior research that neuroticism was associated with more concerns and longer duration estimates of the pandemic [47]. Similarly, individuals who thought the pandemic was a threat to their safety had more future anxiety, and this finding parallels prior work that perceived threat undermines mental well-being [49].

There have been mixed results about the association between gender and COVID-19-related feelings, stress, and actions. For example, women had more COVID-related worries than men but had about the same level of perceived stress and perceived chance of contracting COVID-19 with men [64]. When it comes to using social media to share information about COVID-19, women were 1.58 times more likely to do so than men [67]. Our finding suggests that women were 2.17 times more likely than men to report higher rating on the perceived importance of social connectedness, potentially explaining the reason for women's higher rate of sharing information on social media.

This study has a few limitations. Arguably, the level and form of human–ICT interaction may be different for each type of ICT [3]. For example, traditional media, such as television channels, may be used for information seeking purposes, whereas social media, such as Facebook, may be used for information seeking purposes as well as maintaining social connectedness. This variability may also differ from one user to another. The current paper broadly defined ICT as digital communication technology that allows users to interact and receive information and did not specify the application environment or users' prior experience with each ICT. We also did not consider multi-user interactions or devices, such as the case of video gaming applications. In the context of pandemic response, prior research has highlighted the benefits of using digital communication technologies for diagnostic efforts, risk communication practices, and coordination processes [4], and future research should examine the level and form of human–ICT interaction in each of the use categories.

Second, given the nature of data collection, some potential threats to external validity of the study are discussed. First of all, the sample might not be representative of the general U.S. public. The sample size was small and participants were recruited through Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform developed by Amazon. Walters and colleagues [68] have found that although MTurk workers were similar to the representative national sample, MTurk users tended to be younger, more likely to have a college degree, and less likely to report excellent health status. Additionally, the data were collected around the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. With new COVID-19 vaccines and related media, political and economic adjustments, the degree to which the study results will stay the same as the pandemic enters a more advanced stage remains an open question. In addition, only self-reported survey instruments were used; there might have been overreporting, underreporting, or social desirability bias, especially for socially sensitive questions [69]. Although indirect questioning was used to the extent possible (such as the phrasing of third-person wording, as opposed to first-person wording), some direct questioning was unavoidable. Future research should compare these wording differences in the context of a global pandemic and pandemic response in survey-based study design.

Despite the limitations of having a small sample size and the use of self-reported instruments, our findings contribute to the literature by highlighting the role ICTs play during the early phase of the pandemic: they are used for information seeking and social contact. These usage patterns are associated with various feelings about the pandemic. Therefore, it

is important for authorities, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and employers to align their messaging and outreach activities with people's psychosocial, personality, and health considerations through ICT channels while empowering ICT users to be responsible for their interactions with the technology [70].

#### **6. Conclusions**

This study was designed to examine the roles ICTs played during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Adults from a U.S. sample completed questions about their reactions, actions, feelings about the pandemic as well as their personality and psychosocial characteristics via an online survey. We argue that ICTs played multiple roles during the pandemic. Notably, ICTs are broadly defined in this study as the focus is on digital communication technology. Our results suggest that users interact with ICTs for the purposes of information seeking and staying socially connected with their families, friends, and social networks. These findings are in line with the idea that technology is used as a coping tool; however, as the society's reliance on technology increases during the pandemic and potentially post-pandemic, we need to constructively and mindfully leverage technology to improve our health and safety and reduce anxiety and stress. Users are to pay attention to their usage habits, and responsible interactions with ICT are critical in improving feelings of social connectedness while minimizing feelings of future anxiety.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10 .3390/ijerph18073571/s1, File S1: A copy of the survey items.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Y.-C.L.; methodology, Y.-C.L.; formal analysis, Y.-C.L.; data curation, Y.-C.L. and L.A.M.; writing—original draft preparation, L.A.M., Y.-C.L. and S.C.K.; writing—review and editing, Y.-C.L. and S.C.K.; visualization, Y.-C.L. and L.A.M.; supervision, Y.-C.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding. Publication of this article was funded by the George Mason University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of George Mason University (protocol # 1589810 on 14 April 2020).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy considerations.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

