Introduction:
These questions below follow the research done around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. This group of professors will research how social media has affected the fear and misinformation of the COVID-19 virus. The participants are someone 16 years of age and old but, also able to understand English. It was done through a questionnaire online in March of 2020. The whole purpose of this is to gain knowledge on how to develop preventive measures when dealing with anxiety linked to this pandemic.

Provide the citation and attach a pdf of the article

Hossain MT, Ahammed B, Chanda SK, Jahan N, Ela MZ, Islam MN (2020) “Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation.” PLoS ONE 15(9): e0238974. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238974

https://storage.googleapis.com/plos-corpus-prod/10.1371/journal.pone.0238974/1/pone.0238974.pdf?X-Goog-Algorithm=GOOG4-RSA-SHA256&X-Goog-Credential=wombat-sa%40plos-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com%2F20210228%2Fauto%2Fstorage%2Fgoog4_request&X-Goog-Date=20210228T184158Z&X-Goog-Expires=3600&X-Goog-SignedHeaders=host&X-Goog-Signature=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

What is the abstract of the article?

Classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has spread to Bangladesh since early March of 2020, and people are getting daily updates from the social and electronic media. We aimed at assessing the prevalence of anxiety among Bangladeshi people during the pandemic in connection with social media exposure (SME) and electronic media exposure (EME). For this cross-sectional study, data were collected from 880 participants by a self-administered online-based questionnaire relating personal characteristics, self-rate health (SRH), SME, and EME with anxiety. Findings show that around half of the surveyed population experienced a spike of anxiety (49.1%) during the pandemic, ten times higher than the national anxiety rate in 2019. The participants with an increased SME of over four hours per day experienced a higher level of anxiety than individuals with < = 2 hours exposure to social media. Similarly, the anxiety was higher among people with fair/bad SRH compared to individuals with excellent SRH. It is highly recommended to develop active surveillance and effective monitoring systems to reduce the spread of misinformation from both social and electronic media to improve the state of mental health conditions during the pandemic.

Was the study experimental or non-experimental? Explain, tell us what made that clear.
This research was done through a self-administered questionnaire online for young teens up to adults. I believe since it was a survey then it would be non-experimental. The professors did not manipulate any subjects into categories. People did volunteer however they read off a computer screen. They are trying to get the relationship between the two groups. In this case, social media’s effect on people’s anxiety. They used 880 participants in this research, and it showed that over half had a spike in their anxiety. Around 49.1% which according to the article is “ten times higher than the national anxiety rate in 2019.” (Hossain M.T, Ahammed B, Chanda SK, Jahan N, Ela MZ, Islam M.N 2020) In this case, they are just observing the individual’s data and what lines up most from the questions.

Was the research qualitative or quantitative? Again, explain.
The questionnaire was Qualitative research all the way around. They were trying to get some information on how to help people with anxiety from too much social media. Social media has been known to provide false trials on daily topics. So many opinions out there that it is hard to get the truth. Hopefully, this study will shed some light on how to help individuals with this issue.

What was the population studied?
The population studied was anyone from 16 on up and who could understand English. You had everything calculated such as gender, education level, marital status, and even occupations. They asked in the questionnaire how often were the participants exposed to social media and electronic media as well. The setting of this was during the lock down about the news on COVID-19. When measuring anxiety they used the generalised anxiety disorder scale (GAD-7)

What sample was used for this study?
I believe the samples were the 880 participants doing the questionnaire. That included 616 males and 264 females. Most of the males were unmarried. They made up for 70% of the counts in the survey. They found that several factors such as location, education, and etc were the cause of the social media exposure.

What was the method of measurement?
In the early part of this assignment, I said it was qualitative. In this article, they showed from the first table that was based on the exposure to social media. What they found was that the social media exposure of less at 7.4%, sometimes was 21.7%, often at 27.0%, and always coming in at 43.9%. The exposure to social media was close to the same with both males and females. The age group with the highest amount was aging 26-30 years of age. Most people who were married and had a good education had more exposure than those who do not. Urban areas as well had more exposure than those living in rural areas.
The second table looked at the Electronic Media Exposure and with the categories of less, sometimes, often, and always. The numbers came in as 9.3%, 26.5%, 28.5%, and 35.7%. The group that used electronic media the most was males at 36.5%. The females were around 33.7%. There was not much difference between married and unmarried participants.
The third table showed the anxiety in the different categories listed. The anxiety level was about 49.1%. The information showed that the age group that ranged from 21-25 that we’re married and in urban areas had the most amount of exposure to electronic media.

What was the method of analysis?
If the research was qualitative, in what manner was the data analyzed?
The methods used were providing a survey online for random participants. They were more qualitative in their research. This survey could have been quantitative since they had several age groups and different backgrounds to look from. During the first few weeks of the lockdown, they had an idea that people’s anxiety would spike. This whole idea was to better understand how they could combat this issue in their own country. They asked how much exposure where they were exposed to daily. They looked at the data in two different stages, they used Pearson’s chi-square to measure the similarities of the variables with the social and electronic exposure. The multivariable logistic regression model found how the similarities had the ratios of each.
What was the conclusion of the study?
The study shows the effects on mental health with exposure to electronic and social media. In Bangladeshi, it is obvious that too much exposure harmed folk’s health. They felt that social media exposure was the biggest factor in increasing anxiety in Bangladeshi. What they recommend is the government needs to keep watch and control the amount of misinformation being spread. Also, the authorities need to do a better job of spreading more cheer to its population through electronic and social media. Maybe not so much the deaths from the virus but, the ones who have recovered safely from it.

Why is this study useful to you? Explain in detail.
I felt this study was useful to me for a couple of reasons. First, it showed me that someone out there did a study and showed how media affects its people. In this case, it showed how people’s anxiety has gone up during the lock down due to the exposure. Second, the study did use random samples and categorised them into all sorts of groups. They were based on not only age and genders but marital status, education, and even job occupations. To me, that is using a wide variety of options to help learn something. That is one of the best ways to understand what is being studied.
This study was based on the negative effect of social media and how it has increased anxiety levels. Now that they have an idea of what the culprit is. They can begin to learn how to combat issues like this. The only problem is getting governments to help their people out. I believe in this study they recommended for the government to aid in keeping an eye on misinformation, but they may not listen.

What would be the next logical step in extending this study?
If we were to extend this study, I believe they should communicate with other countries to get some new ideas to add to the survey. To see if anything has changed since lock down. They already have many samples. It might be a good idea to have the questionnaire have certain questions for the age groups. Rather than asking the same questions to all the participants. It might be interesting to ask what type of media you use and where you use it the most. They could also ask the person taking the test to do a challenge to see if they can stay off social media. Have then record the results and submit. They could use this to see if not watching social media could bring down the anxiety a bit.

References:

Patten, M. L., & Newhart, M. (2018). Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials. Routledge.
Hossain MT, Ahammed B, Chanda SK, Jahan N, Ela MZ, Islam MN (2020) “Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation.” PLoS ONE 15(9): e0238974. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238974