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Loneliness threatens public mental wellbeing during COVID-19. In response, YouTube creators participated in the #StayHome #WithMe movement (SHWM) and made myriad videos for people experiencing loneliness or boredom at home. User-shared videos generate parasocial attachment and virtual connectedness. However, there is limited knowledge of how creato...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... analysis of SHWM videos was guided by Weiss's framework of social-emotional loneliness [54]. Weiss's theory conceptualizes six core types of social provisions that people need to refrain loneliness (Table 1) -attachment, social integration, reassurance of worth, reliable alliance, guidance, and opportunity for nurturance. Weiss' model incorporates the major elements of social relationships people need from families, friends, and mentors [14], which are also the connections that are likely to be absent during social distancing. ...Context 2
... work utilizes Weiss's theory of loneliness [64] to examine the role of SHWM videos in offering social provisions during COVID-19. Weiss conceptualized social and emotional loneliness and argued that people need six social provisions to deal with loneliness [54]; see Table 1 for definitions, which are elaborated in section 3.2. Cutrona and Russell examined Weiss's loneliness theory in psychological practice and identified the sources of social provisions [14]. ...Citations
... At its core, YouTube allows users to publish, watch, and interact with long-or shortform videos. HCI research on YouTube videos has covered video creation, communities, and platform algorithms [18,59,70,111,133,134,161,205]. ...
... social relationships and networking [9,27,39,45,48,64,99,110,163,192,202,209], commenting on videos [112,158,159,212], user-led content moderation [21,22,200], social movements and crises [66,133,134,153,195] New Video Interaction Systems and Techniques Designing a new video interaction system or tool; or an improvement of current video features on VSPs. ...
... Wohn et al. sought to relate viewers' motivations for gifting to social provisions [202]. Other studies examined how VSPs mediated social participation during crisis events [153] and social movements [133,134]. ...
Video-sharing platforms (VSPs) such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch have grown rapidly in recent years and attracted millions of users. Research topics such as online communities, video interactions, and recommendation algorithms have drawn increasing attention. Group and community dynamics were also examined with live streaming and short-form videos. However, HCI literature lacks a holistic picture of video-sharing research themes, methods, and findings that summarizes the diverse topics on interaction modalities and communities. Prior reviews on VSPs were about a particular platform or reviewed as a part of social media. This paper contributes a scoping review of 106 articles on video-sharing published in HCI literature from 2012 to June 2022. We identified six research themes through grounded theory analysis and encoded five HCI research methods in VSP studies. We concluded a framework with five components to structure findings in video-sharing research, with which we reflect on future directions on this topic.
... (Afonso et al., 2020;Gaggi et al., 2020;Kelly et al., 2021)) and leisure behavior (cf. (Benford et al., 2021;Niu et al., 2021;Yeung, 2020)) have been explored in recent studies from a human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective, food practices, and in particular the media and technology used during those practices in pandemic times, are rarely examined (cf. (Ceccaldi et al., 2020)). ...
Over the last three years, COVID-19, with its lockdowns, social restrictions, and work from home structures, had a significant influence on our daily lives. The resulting changes in technology practices are likely to be explored in the years ahead. We will contribute to this exploration by looking specifically at the impact of COVID-19 on everyday food practices and the role of involved technology. To explore food practices and technology use, we conducted a qualitative interview study with 16 interviewees and delved into the underlying influencing factors behind them. Thereby we can better understand potential behavioral changes and technology usage by people to design not only for future pandemics and exceptional situations but to also for non-pandemic times.
... The British Newspaper Association reported that 30.9% of respondents had experienced loneliness within one month after the outbreak; the survey included 50.8% of young people aged between 16 and 24, 33.2% of adults aged between 25 and 39, 26.2% aged between 40 and 54, 24.1% aged between 55 and 69, and 28.1% aged +70. In addition, 53% of people were alone (i.e., single, widowed, divorced, or separated alone) [9]. A cross-sectional study based on the rural elderly population in Shandong, China, found that 25.0% of respondents reported feeling lonely, with females accounting for 58.1% of the lonely respondents. ...
Background:
The proportion of elderly people living with HIV (PLHIV) is increasing in China. To advance targeted interventions and substantially improve their quality of life, we investigate indicators of loneliness and sexual behavior among elderly PLHIV in 10 districts/counties in China during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
The demographic information and laboratory test results of the potential respondents were initially collected from the China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention. A two-stage stratified cluster sampling was used. The questionnaire survey was individually provided to all PLHIV aged +60.
Results:
We recruited 1017 valid respondents with a median age of 66 years (interquartile range of 63-71), of which 776 (76.3%) were male. Overall, 341 respondents (33.5%) lived alone, and 304 (29.9%) felt lonely. A total of 726 respondents (71.4%) informed others of their HIV diagnosis. Among the 726 respondents, children were the most common group with whom the older people shared their HIV infection status, accounting for 82.9%. Approximately 20% of the older PLHIV engaged in sexual behavior in the last year, and 70% reported not using condoms. A significantly greater risk of loneliness was found among the females (AOR = 1.542, CI: 1.084, 2.193), those who suffered discrimination from informed people (AOR = 4.719, CI: 2.986, 7.459), were diagnosed <1 year prior (AOR = 2.061, CI: 1.345, 3.156), those living alone (AOR = 2.314, CI: 1.632, 3.280), those having no friends (AOR = 1.779, CI: 1.327, 2.386), and those who had a divorced or widowed marital status (AOR = 1.686, CI: 1.174, 2.421).
Conclusions:
Compared with non-lonely participants, the lonely participants were more likely to have a rural registered residence, a lower education level, no friends, be divorced or widowed, live alone, and lack knowledge of smartphones and reproductive health. The influence of COVID-19 had caused social activities to be more confined to the community, which impacts elderly HIV patients suffering from severe discrimination within families and communities.
... Social media "are especially potent in establishing parasocial relationships of trust and intimacy" because they are structured and presented as "a direct exchange between equals" (Baker & Rojek, 2019, p. 9). Niu et al. (2021) found that this parasocial structure was particularly strong for YouTube audiences during COVID-19 lockdowns because YouTubers met people's need for human connection. ...
... For example, rates of loneliness and depression increased in the United States during COVID-19-related lockdowns (Rosenberg et al., 2021). Consequently, US YouTubers participated in social media's #StayHome #WithMe (SHWM) movement, helping people to cope and connect with others by posting entertaining and comforting content that reduced people's stress and diverted their attention from pandemic-related stressors (Niu et al., 2021). Sofian (2020) found that five popular Indonesian YouTubers raised public awareness about COVID-19 to counter false information when the Indonesian government did not. ...
... As Nigerians also view social media as a "laughing space" where they can still highlight societal issues, it was not surprising that these videos were the most viewed (123,237 to 1.2 million) (Yékú, 2016, p. 249). These numbers matched Niu et al.'s (2021) finding that people turned to YouTube for entertainment and distraction during the pandemic. Johnston's (2017) finding that comedy can increase viewership and engagement is also supported. ...
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigerian social media micro-celebrities were prominent players in the dissemination of information. This study examines the roles that one group of Nigerian micro-celebrities, YouTube video bloggers (vloggers)—also known as “YouTubers”—played during the pandemic. The research analysed the contents of COVID-19-themed videos that 15 popular Nigerian YouTubers posted on their channels between 29 February and 5 August 2020. The study was guided by the two-step flow of communication theory, in terms of which information first flows from mass media to opinion leaders, who then, in the second step, share the information with their audiences. The study found that all 15 YouTubers played positive roles as opinion leaders—by providing health and safety information on COVID-19, challenging myths, and educating audiences through entertainment. Only two of the YouTubers studied were found to have shared some information that misinformed their audiences about the virus and how to fight it. The study therefore concluded that Nigerian YouTubers, as opinion leaders, can be important allies to governments and organisations when health crises arise in the country.
... The spreading of conspiracy needs a connection to like-minded people [14]. Directly speaking to the viewers may establish "parasocial relationships" with the viewers and cultivate trust and companionship [6,9,11]. Future work needs to examine how YouTube videos help hate groups establish identities and a sense of community. ...
As the largest video-sharing platform, YouTube has been known for hosting hate ideology content that could lead to between-group conflicts and extremism. Research has examined search algorithms and the creator-fan networks related to radicalization videos on YouTube. However, there is little grounded theory analysis of videos of hate groups to understand how hate groups present to the viewers and discuss social problems, solutions, and actions. This work presents a preliminary analysis of 96 videos using open-coding and affinity diagramming to identify common video styles created by the U.S. hate ideology groups. We also annotated hate videos' diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing to understand how the hate groups utilize video-sharing platforms to promote collective actions.
... Informal learning and mentorship are some of the most common motivations to use YouTube, in which people learn in the forms of lectures, guides, vlogs, and informational videos [18,42]. Recent research has examined the roles of video-sharing in supporting mental health [41,48,50]. YouTubers leverage their expertise to offer social provisions [48]. ...
... Recent research has examined the roles of video-sharing in supporting mental health [41,48,50]. YouTubers leverage their expertise to offer social provisions [48]. Viewers actively seek medical information online, and YouTube videos can provide educational information [41]. ...
... Video watching, liking, and comment data are directly obtained from YouTube API. These factors are commonly used to measure the levels of video interactions [10,37,48,58]. Posthoc analysis is performed with the Steel-Dwass method. ...
Drug addiction has become one of the most severe worldwide social problems. Recent research has examined utilizing social media to support addiction recovery and the problematic use of social media for selling drugs and glamorizing drug use. Prior studies have focused on textual and networking-based social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, but there is limited understanding of how video-based platforms like YouTube allow creators to share drug addiction-related videos and discourse about addiction problems. This work performs a content analysis of 387 drug-addiction-related videos collected from YouTube. The grounded-theory approach based on the health-emergency framework identifies how drug-addiction videos discourse the addiction-related risk, blame, urgency, praise, and solution. Video viewership and comments are also compared between the emerged video themes. Results suggest YouTubers educate others about drug addiction, disclose personal experiences, and advocate for addiction prevention and recovery. Based on our findings, we discuss the opportunities and challenges of using video-sharing to prevent and educate drug addiction.
... In the field of HCI and CSCW, scholars have dedicated substantial efforts to establishing timely and reliable connections between crisis information and the affected public. Much of their work explores how people gather information from news media and/or personal networks to estimate the evolving risk of an ongoing crisis [41,42,58,82,98], stay connected with other stakeholders responding to the crisis [27,45,46,98,107], combat the threat of misleading content [2,59,63,66], and restore regular life routines as well as mental health [57,71,88,108]. Despite its values, this research has mostly been conducted with domestic citizens of the affected regions. It leaves international migrants, who have to navigate the crisis outside their native language and cultural environment, in a near blind spot. ...
Information seeking is crucial for people's self-care and wellbeing in times of public crises. Extensive research has investigated empirical understandings as well as technical solutions to facilitate information seeking by domestic citizens of affected regions. However, limited knowledge is established to support international migrants who need to survive a crisis in their host countries. The current paper presents an interview study with two cohorts of Chinese migrants living in Japan (N=14) and the United States (N=14). Participants reflected on their information seeking experiences during the COVID pandemic. The reflection was supplemented by two weeks of self-tracking where participants maintained records of their COVID-related information seeking practice. Our data indicated that participants often took language detours, or visits to Mandarin resources for information about the COVID outbreak in their host countries. They also made strategic use of the Mandarin information to perform selective reading, cross-checking, and contextualized interpretation of COVID-related information in Japanese or English. While such practices enhanced participants' perceived effectiveness of COVID-related information gathering and sensemaking, they disadvantaged people through sometimes incognizant ways. Further, participants lacked the awareness or preference to review migrant-oriented information that was issued by the host country's public authorities despite its availability. Building upon these findings, we discussed solutions to improve international migrants' COVID-related information seeking in their non-native language and cultural environment. We advocated inclusive crisis infrastructures that would engage people with diverse levels of local language fluency, information literacy, and experience in leveraging public services.
... In the field of HCI and CSCW, scholars have dedicated substantial efforts to establishing timely and reliable connections between crisis information and the affected public. Much of their work explores how people gather information from news media and/or personal networks to estimate the evolving risk of an ongoing crisis [41,42,58,82,98], stay connected with other stakeholders responding to the crisis [27,45,46,98,107], combat the threat of misleading content [2,59,63,66], and restore regular life routines as well as mental health [57,71,88,108]. Despite its values, this research has mostly been conducted with domestic citizens of the affected regions. It leaves international migrants, who have to navigate the crisis outside their native language and cultural environment, in a near blind spot. ...
Information seeking is crucial for people's self-care and wellbeing in times of public crises. Extensive research has investigated empirical understandings as well as technical solutions to facilitate information seeking by domestic citizens of affected regions. However, limited knowledge is established to support international migrants who need to survive a crisis in their host countries. The current paper presents an interview study with two cohorts of Chinese migrants living in Japan (N=14) and the United States (N=14). Participants reflected on their information seeking experiences during the COVID pandemic. The reflection was supplemented by two weeks of self-tracking where participants maintained records of their COVIDrelated information seeking practice. Our data indicated that participants often took language detours, or visits to Mandarin resources for information about the COVID outbreak in their host countries. They also made strategic use of the Mandarin information to perform selective reading, cross-checking, and contextualized interpretation of COVID-related information in Japanese or English. While such practices enhanced participants' perceived effectiveness of COVID-related information gathering and sensemaking, they disadvantaged people through sometimes incognizant ways. Further, participants lacked the awareness or preference to review migrant-oriented information that was issued by the host country's public authorities despite its availability. Building upon these findings, we discussed solutions to improve international migrants' COVID-related information seeking in their non-native language and cultural environment. We advocated inclusive crisis infrastructures that would engage people with diverse levels of local language fluency, information literacy, and experience in leveraging public services.
... Moreover, this study examined how consumers interpret YouTubers' review information cognitively and affectively, which influences their purchase intentions. YouTubers simultaneously entertain viewers and provide product reviews for consumers [56]. In a previous study, consumers rated the credibility, reliability, and professionalism of You-Tubers and the information they convey as indicators of cognitive trust [53,54]. ...
Product reviews on YouTube have become highly beneficial to consumers’ decision-making, as they can help consumers judge and experience products before making purchases. Consequently, scholars and managers must understand consumer behaviors regarding product reviews and identify factors influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions. A novel contribution of the study is the introduction of a model based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm that explains how sensory marketing and information adoption affect parasocial interaction, trust (cognitive and affective), and information usefulness that are correlated with consumers’ responses to stickiness, adoption, and purchase intentions. To empirically evaluate the proposed research model, we conducted an online survey of 611 participants who had purchased products based on YouTube product reviews. We performed data analysis using structural equation modelling and Smart-PLS software, and the results indicated that all hypotheses were supported except for parasocial interaction and information usefulness, which were rejected. This study could provide insights into the antecedents and consequences of purchase intentions in light of YouTube product reviews, thus contributing knowledge of online consumer behaviors to help managers understand consumer behaviors regarding social media and formulate marketing strategies.
... OSNs are the biggest data source to analyse the societal behavior during this pandemic. A large number of studies focused on sentiment analysis [7] and topical discourse on in the societies [21,24,46]. An earlier research emphasizes the similarity of COVID-19 content sharing patterns across different OSNs and other online platforms [17]. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic led governments to rely on the versatility of social media to communicate with their citizens. This paper analyzes the Facebook communication of political leaders and health departments from 17 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate the citizen's response under the frameworks of media richness and user engagement. We note that governments and leaders communicate primarily through richer media (photos and videos), despite a negative correlation between media richness and user engagement. Plain-text messages posted by country leaders attract the most engagement, while their COVID-19 communication tends to generate lower engagement. On the other hand, health departments' pages experienced a sharp increase in engagement around COVID-19 communication as citizens sought information during the pandemic. Finally, topical analysis shows that Discussions and Co-Use of COVID-19 with other topics can boost citizens' engagement. Our comparative analysis shows practical implications for social media users and social media designers. Our findings can help governments and organizations design effective social media communication during crises.
