How Chinese People Expressed Well-Being and Mobility Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Microblogs

Abstract

Abstract This study used Weibo microblog records to analyze and compare the changes in the well-being and mobility of people in China in 2020 (when the COVID-19 outbreak was announced) and 2021 (when the vaccine was announced). Python software's crawling program was used to randomly select 477 users (45.28% of whom were male) and their 16,645 records from January 2020 to April 2021. The word frequency in each microblog text was conceptually defined as a variable, such as self-reference, emotion, and mobility words. Analysis of Weibo user behavior over a year in 2020 and 4 months in 2021 revealed that self-representation (when talking about “I”) had a lower positive affect and higher negative affect at later times than at earlier times. When users discussed “we,” their group identity displayed lower positive affect and more motion behaviors (e.g., shopping and walking outside). However, in 2021, their group identity had a higher positive affect and more motion behaviors, and their self-representation had a lower positive affect and fewer motion behaviors. The implications, limitations, and potential future research are discussed.