DIGITAL EXPOSURE, EMOTIONAL REGULATION, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FATIGUE DURING COVID-19: A REVIEW-BASED STUDY OF INDIAN WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created a crisis in India that is unprecedented in terms of the amount of information available. During the length of time during which people were required to remain inside their homes due primarily because of limitations placed on them by the pandemic, they were subject to constant digital updates, engagement through social media, and other methods of communicating through digital technology. This availability of information has greatly impacted the mental health of many people throughout India (particularly women), who have been impacted more than men by the COVID-19 pandemic due to their caregiving roles, disproportionate amounts of emotional labour, increased levels of reliance on family and friends for social support and care, and the consequences of cultural norms associated with women regarding silence, endurance and caregiving. Digital platforms provide a primary means of accessing information, connecting to others, and obtaining reassurance, but they also serve as stress amplifiers to the extent that they increase access to fear, misinformation, social comparison, and emotional contagion. The current study examines how the cumulative experiences of using digital technology, during the COVID-19 pandemic, have influenced the psychological distress and emotional exhaustion experienced by Indian women.

This research is a narrative-themed review which includes entirely secondary sources (including peer-reviewed journals, open-access papers, and other publically available policy/program documents) that are related to Indians. The report presents a summary of the evidence across four themes: women's digital exposure and usage patterns; the psychological mechanisms between digital and emotional distress; emotional regulation and coping pathways; and digital well-being interventions during public health crises.

The study demonstrated that psychological distress can originate from multiple sources. The factors that contributed to distress were related specifically to how their digital use (e.g., high amount of time spent on screens) lead to some of the following outcomes (e.g., experiencing multiple forms of psychological distress because of information overload/ fear- amplified/digital misinformation exposure/ruminative cycles/sleep disturbance/social comparison stress). In addition to the aforementioned causes of psychological distress, there are also cultures or structural factors relating to feelings of having caregiving responsibilities or household surveillance/poverty or inequality through digital means/limited access to good sources of credible information and/or resources to receive help that compounded the causes of psychological distress. The conclusion of this research suggests that while there is a major influence by women's gendered and institutional conditions on the mental health outcome of women during this pandemic; that it has a lesser relationship to the individual vulnerability of these same women. In this way, improving women's digital well-being can be done through the development of gender-sensitive intervention frameworks that will incorporate digital literacy, household/community supports, privacy protections, and access to tele-mental health services. The integration of these approaches is necessary to decrease emotional fatigue and improve women's resilience in future crises.

Keywords: Digital exposure, women’s mental health, COVID-19, emotional fatigue, digital wellbeing.