Keywords

1 Introduction and Literature Review

It has been common practice in global marketing to group consumer segments into target market categories [1]. Cohorts are groups of individuals who are born during a specific time interval of 20 years and travel through life together [2, 3]. Contemporary researchers consider that generational cohorts are better demographic indicators as compared to age, since cohorts exhibit similar and consistent intra-cohort behavior, while there are noticeable inter-cohort differences [4, 5]. Cohort effects are life-long effects. They provide the communality for each cohort being targeted as a separate market segment [2, 5]. According to Johnston [6] generation X refers to people born within years 1961–1981, Generation Y to people born within the interval 1982–1991 and Generation Z to people born after 1992. Generation X is the generation that is using Facebook at a higher rate than the other generations, generation Y users use social media to interact with others and they are “digital natives”, while generation Z navigate the digital world, using social media for more varied purposes [7, 8].

Social media have dynamically entered our lives changing the ways that users communicate and gather information. “Over the last decade, social media have come to influence human lives in a manner that is unprecedented in its scale and magnitude” [9]. “Social media platforms are among the most widely used sources of information in the world, the easy and inexpensive access to the internet and a large number of registered users in these platforms make them one of the easiest and most effective ways to disseminate information. During major events, the overall response is usually a greater search for information, be it a sports event, a disease, or a natural disaster” [10]. Companies use mobile and web-based technologies in order to create interactive platforms where individuals and organisations share content, exchange ideas and views and publish their interests. Moreover, it should be taken into account that information and communication technologies are well adopted in higher education as well and their further implementation can take place [11].

The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is the recent pandemic which affected every part of the world and started in Wuhan city of the People’s Republic of China [12]. The Covid-19 has unfolded like an inferno in more than 213 countries in the globe [13]. People’s response to the disease has differed from country to country and region to region, but there was also a great variety in their severity. Lockdown measures and quarantine were ubiquitous, but not everybody reacted essentially to the measures of precaution [14]. Health anxiety is an issue of concern during the Covid-19 pandemic as many citizens had higher levels of health anxiety and tend to search for health-related information [15].

Social media played a positive role during the Covid-19 pandemic by promoting effective strategies for helping individuals in dealing with social and physical distancing and reducing stigma, prejudice, discrimination and inequalities [16]. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a rapid consumption of social media services. It has now become an integral and popular communication tool for information generation, consumption and dissemination [17]. As Liou [18] found in her work, Covid-19 information seeking through digital media was a salient parameter that encouraged people to practice preventive behaviors either directly or indirectly.

The use of social media by different generations occurs naturally, but this means that this space must respond to needs arising from different life cycles (e.g., school, work, or retirement) [19]. In terms of differences between the generations and respective use of social media, a study conducted in Canada in 2021 found that older adults increased their usage of Facebook and teleconferencing tools after Covid-19, but technology was more important to the younger generation for enabling them to connect to their elders [20]. Jones [21] in his work in 2020 found that 68% of consumers are seeking out pandemic updates online—over any other activity—expect generation Z that prefers to listen to music, or play computer games rather than search for news.

The aim of this study is to explore the attitude and points of view of Greek citizens with respect to social media usage during the pandemic and differentiate upon the three aforementioned generations. Specifically, the following aspects are examined: (a) different feelings (happiness, anxiety/stress, calmness, fear) and their respective level experienced by members of the generational cohorts, while browsing social media pages seeking Covid-19 related information; (b) different degree of belief found among the cohorts with respect to the quality of social media pages, groups and accounts covering Covid-19 evolution; (c) different degree of belief found among the cohorts with respect to the reliability of Covid-19 associated information obtained from these social media pages.

2 Methods and Materials

The research strategy implemented in this study is case study-based on quantitative research. Regarding the research design, the study targeted three generational cohorts, i.e., generations X, Y and Z. A non-probability sampling frame was implemented, and data were collected via an online questionnaire targeting to generations X, Y and Z. The respondents were asked to forward the questionnaire link to friends and acquaintances who met the criterion [22]. Beattie, Lamm, Rumble, and Ellis [23] used non-probability sampling to gain an understanding of how the public thinks and makes decisions. Participants were Greek citizens that had access to the Internet and consented to the use of data. The study was conducted in the early post-covid period and more specifically between October and December 2021. In the context of this work, 312 responses were collected.

3 Descriptive Statistics

The sample comprised 128 (41%) male and 184 (59%) female participants. The distribution of the respondents was 46 (14,7%) for generation X, 236 (75.6%) for generation Y and 30 (9.6%) for generation Z. The number of participants that had completed secondary level of education was 46 (14.7%), tertiary level of education 216 (69.2%), for MSc/MA level there were 38 participants (12.2%), for PhD studies two (0.6%) and for other level eight respondents (2.6%) There were two missing responses. For the family status 239 (76.6%) responded as single, 65 (20.8%) as married, 4 (1.3%) as divorced and 2 (0.6%) as widowed. There were two missing values. With respect to whether the respondent or a close relative has been infected by Covid-19 the answers were 236 for “yes” (75.6%), 66 for “no” (21.2%) and 10 (3.2%) did not want to answer. The average time spend daily while browsing social media pages was 60 (19.2%) for “less than one hour”, 188 (60.3%) for “one to two hours”, 36 (11.5%) for “three to four hours”, 18 (5.8%) for “five to six hours” and 10 (3.2%) for “more than six hours”. The above times were modified during lock down accordingly: 4 (1.3%), 78 (25%), 162 (51.9%), 36 (11.5%) and 32 (10.3%). Most of the respondents choose to spend their time on: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube (34–10.9%) and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok (28–9%).

During lockdown the mostly visited platform was Instagram (154–49.4%), followed by YouTube (46–14.7%) and Facebook (42–13.5%). The main reasons for visiting these social media platforms were relaxation, entertainment, information seeking, and communication (122–39.1%) while during lockdown the top reasons were relaxation, entertainment, information seeking, communication and nothing else to do (160–51.3%). The type of information sought was various news (162–51.9%).

Overall, most participants believe that the quality level of Greek social media pages, groups and accounts that cover Covid-19 is: “average” (198–63.5%).

The following Tables present the results on participants’ feeling of happiness while browsing social media during the pandemic (Table 1) and their point of view with respect to the reliability of information found on these pages (Table 2). The degree of happiness experienced was mostly “average” (110–35.3%) followed by “low” (98–31.4%). The vast majority of respondents believe that the reliability of information is “average” (182–58.3%).

Table 1 Feeling of happiness
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Table 2 Reliability of information
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4 Inferential Statistics

As stated before, the hypotheses that were posed were that the three cohorts exhibit differences in the following aspects: different feelings, belief about the page quality level and belief about the information reliability. In order to carry out an ANOVA procedure, some assumptions are required to be met. Specifically, the independence of observations, the normality of distributions for each subpopulation and the homogeneity of variances across the subgroups. In our case, all these assumptions were met as the three subgroups are distinct, with a size n > 25 (thus there is no need to check for normality) and the homogeneity assumption was verified with Levene’s test.

The one-way ANOVA test (Table 3) was conducted to compare the three groups average feeling. The analysis produced a statistically significant result for happiness: (F(2.301) = 10.439, p < 0.001, reject H0) and marginally significant for calmness (F(2,2.9) = 6.958, p = 0.001, reject H0). The effect size was found to be roughly medium (η2 = 0.065 for happiness and η2 = 0.044 for calmness). The results for the other feelings (anxiety/stress, fear) were statistically insignificant.

Table 3 ANOVA results
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For the second hypothesis (page quality) results also showed a significant difference; (F(2.307) = 9.256, p < 0.001, reject H0), while for the third hypothesis (information reliability) the results were: (F(2.309) = 8.013, p < 0.001, reject H0). The effect size was again medium; η2 = 0.057 for page quality and η2 = 0.049 for information reliability.

Post Hoc Tukey tests revealed that significant (at the 0.05 level) differences in happiness between groups were found for all three groups (pairwise) with mean values 2.04, 2.59 and 3.00 respectively (Table 4). Significant differences in calmness were found for the third group (2.50) with respect to the other two (1.74, 2.07) (Table 5). For the second hypothesis (page quality) the test revealed that the difference lies between subgroups 1 and 2 (3.09 and 2.54) whereas no difference is found between any of the above groups and group 3 (2.87) (Table 6). Similarly, for the third hypothesis (information reliability) the test revealed that the difference lies between subgroups 1 and 2 (3.09 and 2.54) whereas no difference is found between any of the above groups and group 3 (2.80) (Table 7).

Table 4 Tukey B test—happiness
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Table 5 Tukey B test—calmness
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Table 6 Tukey B test—page quality
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Table 7 Tukey B test—information reliability
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5 Discussion and Conclusion

The study sample respondents confirm that Covid-19 information seeking has affected them. The research showed that feelings could, in some cases, be significantly different while browsing for Covid-19 related information in social media. According to Sathish et al. [13] social media is used to create awareness as well anyone can influence the emotion of individuals through social media. The three cohorts do not differentiate with respect to anxiety, stress or fear. Kaya [24] in his research found that “social media did not create any panic or anxiety within the respondents, which is a good indication”. On the other hand, Skouri [25] found in her work that anxiety strongly affected social members in information seeking about Covid-19. However, when it comes to happiness younger people (generation Z) are significantly happier than generation Y, who are in turn significantly happier than generation X. With respect to calmness generation Z is the one that appears to be calmer than both the other two cohorts. Finally, the second hypothesis was related to the cohorts’ point of view on webpage quality. Results have shown that generation X considers the webpages to be of a higher quality than generation Y. Generation Z does not differ with either generation X or Y. The same apply for our third hypothesis. The observed differences between generations can be attributed to the different life experiences they have. Moreover, members of different generations have a varying perception of feelings such as stress, fear or calmness. Thus, their assessment of technological tools as an aid in crises periods also differs. Results for these generations show that social media platform managers and marketers can proceed with no doubt and provide information on future crises, as these generations seem not to exhibit feelings such as stress, anxiety or fear.