The relationship between COVID-19 anxiety and parental burnout in mothers of primary school students and the role of social media use and susceptibility to digital emotion contagion in this relationship

The COVID-19 pandemics surrounding the globe in 2020 led to social and economic turmoil, and this turmail had detrimental effects on families with children. Sometimes, children have been obliged to have distant education, and parents have been obliged to work from home as a disease prevention measure. Even when the prevention measures have been lightened, the feeling of anxiety and stress stemming from uncertainties have continued, and many problems, such as unemployment and decreases in income, have been faced. Assuming that these negative conditions might lead to an increase in parental burnout, in the current study, the relationship between the COVID-19 anxiety and parental burnout was examined. During the COVID-19 epidemic, especially during the periods when strict measures were taken to reduce physical contact between people, people turned to social media more than before to communicate and to meet some of their psycho-social needs. In the current study, how the relationship between social media use and parental burnout changed depending on the usage characteristics, and the role of digital emotion contagion in increasing the effect of functional and dysfunctional use of social media has been examined. Survey data was collected from 445 mothers having at least one school-aged child. Using social media for receiving social support, for self-affirmation, for downward comparisons, for emotion regulation parental burnout and for having fun, were considered as functional media use and expected to reduce reduce parental burnout; whereas using it for upward comparisons and for consuming fake news were accepted as dysfunctional and expected to increase parental burnout. Additionally, the role of participants' levels of susceptibility to dijital contagion of the emotions of sadness, fear/anger and happiness on the relationship between functional and dysfunctional use of social media and parental burnout were examined.