Coping with pandemics using social network sites: A psychological detachment perspective to COVID-19 stressors

Prior research has often portrayed information technology (IT) as a stressor. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate that IT can also be an effective means of coping with life stressors, including those induced by pandemics such as COVID-19. We thus deviate from the common IT-as-a-stressor perspective and adopt an IT-as-a-coping-mechanism viewpoint. To this end, we apply the stressor-detachment model from organisational psychology to the use of social network sites (SNSs) in coping with stressors wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine psychological well-being as our dependant variable and introduce psychological detachment through SNS use as a mediator and moderator of the associat…