JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In the post-pandemic era, retrospecting trust-related issues offers valuable insights into the effective prevention and control of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a damage on people’s trust in others, including strangers and acquaintances, while one’s trust in family members remained unchanged. This resulted in two trust gaps, namely, the gap between trust in family members and in strangers (family members-strangers trust gap) and the gap between trust in family members and in acquaintances (family members-acquaintances trust gap). Widening trust gaps hinder social integration and undermine the effective management of public health crises. Digital media use tends to shape people’s perceptions and attitudes toward others. However, little is known about how digital media use influences trust gaps during a pandemic.

Objective:

This study aims to investigate the relationships between digital media use, negative emotions, family members-strangers trust gap, and family members-acquaintances trust gap during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. We test the mediating role of negative emotions between digital media use and the two trust gaps, and compare the indirect effect of digital media use on the two trust gaps via negative emotions.

Methods:

A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted in China between 31 January to 9 February 2020. A total of 1,568 adults participated in the survey. Questions related to digital media use, negative emotions, trust in family members, trust in acquaintances, and trust in strangers during the pandemic were asked. Regression analyses were performed to test the associations between the examined variables. We used a 95% bootstrap confidence interval approach to estimate the mediation effects.

Results:

Digital media use was positively associated with negative emotions (B = 0.17, SE = 0.03, P < .001), which in turn were positively associated with the family members-strangers trust gap (B = 0.15, SE = 0.03, P < .001). Likewise, digital media use was positively associated with negative emotions (B = 0.17, SE = 0.03, P < .001), while negative emotions were positively associated with the family members-acquaintances trust gap (B = 0.08, SE = 0.03, P = .01). Moreover, the indirect effect of digital media use on the family members-strangers trust gap (B = 0.03, SE = 0.01, CI [.01, .04]) was stronger than that on the family members-acquaintances trust gap (B = 0.01, SE = 0.01, CI [.003, .027]).

Conclusions:

The results demonstrate that negative emotions resulting from the frequent use of digital media are a major cause of the widening trust gaps. Considering our increasing reliance on digital media, the findings denote that the appropriate use of digital media helps avoid the overamplification of negative emotions and curb the enlargement of trust gaps, thereby contributing to the effective management of public health crises in the post-pandemic era.