Anxiety has become one of the pressing concerns that Filipinos, regardless of age and attainment, face. Heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety has taken a huge toll on the lives of Filipinos. Capstone-Intel looked into the presence of anxiety in the Philippine social and non-social media landscape.
Background
In a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Philippines’ economy suffered P68.9 billion in 2019 as a result of mental health issues, or 0.4 percent of the country’s GDP. These yearly costs consist of P66.2 billion in lost productive capacity as a result of early death, incapacity, and decreased productivity at work, in addition to P2.7 billion for healthcare expenses. The productivity losses suggest that multisectoral, whole-of-society participation is required and that investments in mental health could benefit a variety of industries.
Methodology
Capstone-Intel Corp. examined the online presence of anxiety, one of the country’s pressing psychological concerns for one year, from November 28, 2022, to December 28, 2023, by utilizing all publicly accessible posts from social and non-social media platforms in order to gather the sentiments of the public about anxiety.
Facebook Performance
Capstone-Intel found that anxiety garnered a 1,060,135.3 engagement score for its 15,370 total post count, which yielded over 4,826,540 total reaction count. When broken down, “Facebook like” accounts for 49.7 percent of the total reactions, with 2,399,683. Followed by “Facebook love” with 2,016,734 reactions (41.8 percent), “Facebook sad” with 255,351 (5.3 percent), “Facebook haha” with 7,047 (2.5 percent), “Facebook wow” with 1,458 (0.7 percent), and “Facebook angry” with 1,462 reactions.
Looking at the data, the majority of “Facebook love” and “Facebook like” reactions can be attributed to several Filipino social media users loving the idea of talking about anxiety.
Online mentions
Capstone-Intel likewise revealed that the topic received 51.2 percent negative mentions, and the remaining 48.8 percent were positive mentions. This means that the article mentions of the brand is mostly in a negative light. It is also worth noting that the topic received 430,516,415 social media reach, while its non-social media reach yielded over 752,223,955 non-social media mentions, which has generated over 34,894,599 user interactions.
Top posts
In terms of top posts, the top post for the topic was a news report from Rappler, which discusses the reason why Lia, a member of the famous South Korean girl group Itzy, decided to stop participating in group events due to anxiety, received a total of 24,502.7 engagement score.
This was followed by a social media post from Natural Beauty Results featuring the impact of stress and anxiety among the people. This post yielded a total of 11,103.5 engagement score.
The third most engaging post for anxiety was a Facebook post from NBA Buzz, which also discusses how anxiety caused the basketball superstar Tyrell Terry to retire, yielding a total engagement score of 10,353.8.
Looking at the significance of the data, Capstone-Intel found that talking about anxiety in the country has been positioned positively, which makes it easier for Filipinos and other key figures to talk about the topic and their experiences. This helps the issue become a less taboo topic in the country.
