cancer care (1) cat videos (1) Centre County (1) child care (1) children (7) civic-engagement (1) community (2) corrections (1) courts (1) criminal justice system (3) data (2) disparities (2) domestic abuse (1) economy (3) education (6) employment (3) ethics (1) exercise (1) Extreme Risk Protection Orders (1) family (4) fear (1) food insecurity (2) foodservice (2) foster care (1) graphic images (1) grief (1) gun homicide (1) gun lobby (1) gun ownership (1) gun suicide (1) gun violence (4) harm reduction (1) health (6) health care (5) heroin (1) homelessness (1) hospitals (2) human services (1) hunger (2) income (1) infotainment (1) innovation (5) international (2) internet (1) interpersonal communication (1) journalists (1) maltreatment (2) mass shooting (1) mass shootings (1) media (1) media consumption (1) media coverage (1) mediated communication (1) medication-assisted treatment (1) memes (1) mental health (8) mental illness (1) mixed-methods (2) mood (1) moral emotions (1) news media (1) non-profit (1) opioid crisis (1) Pennsylvania (15) policing (2) policy (1) prevention (7) privacy (1) psychology (5) public health (1) public knowledge (1) qualitative research (1) race (1) racial disparities (2) racial injustice (1) red flag laws (1) relationships (1) research (4) rural (2) school districts (2) school shooting (1) school shootings (2) shooting victims (1) social media (1) special education (1) stigma (2) stress (1) student athletes (1) substance use (4) substance use disorder (1) supply chain (1) survey research (2) technology (4) threat assessment teams (1) treatment (4) TX (2) urban (1) Uvalde (2) weather (2)

Strategic media use (even cat videos!) during Covid-19 and every day

Author: Jessica Gall Myrick, PhD
Published:

Article Topics: media, social media, media consumption, internet, cat videos, stress, mood, relationships, memes How thoughtful media use can help us cope with stress and connect with others My goal with this blog post is to convince you that media are important and potentially beneficial parts of our lives, by talking about cats. Cat videos, to be specific. I am allergic to real cats. I think felines are fine, but I cannot spend too much time around them. However, that did not stop me from seeing them pop up in my social media feed all the time. Internet cats were everywhere. As someone who studies media use and the psychological effects of media use, I was intrigued as to why this was (and, okay, as…