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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1431184

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Nostalgic Social Media Use

Provisionally accepted
Peng Xiang Peng Xiang 1Lijuan Chen Lijuan Chen 2Fuming Xu Fuming Xu 3SHASHA DU SHASHA DU 4*Mingxuan Liu Mingxuan Liu 1Yimeng Zhang Yimeng Zhang 5JIayu Tu JIayu Tu 1Xiaoyuan Yin Xiaoyuan Yin 1
  • 1 Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Nanjing, China
  • 2 Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 3 Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
  • 4 Jiangsu Administration Institute, Nanjing, China
  • 5 Jilin University, Changchun, Hebei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    As a retrospective investigation, this study aimed to determine whether the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic substantially increased nostalgia engagement on social media, namely nostalgia social media use. To this end, interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) using a segmented regression model was performed to examine the changes in the weekly volume of searches for nostalgic songs on Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), as a proxy for nostalgic social media use, before and after the lockdown of Wuhan (signaled the start of the pandemic on a national scale in China).Across the study period (January 1, 2019 to February 28, 2021), an immediate and significant increase in nostalgic social media use was observed when the pandemic initially started (95% CI = [47314.30, 154969.60], p ˂ 0.001) compared with the prepandemic baseline. The implications and limitations of this work were discussed.

    Keywords: pandemic, nostalgia, Social Media, nostalgic social media use, Douyin

    Received: 13 May 2024; Accepted: 02 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xiang, Chen, Xu, DU, Liu, Zhang, Tu and Yin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: SHASHA DU, Jiangsu Administration Institute, Nanjing, China

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