Stuck in the past or living in the present? Temporal focus and the spread of COVID-19

Abstract

Research has shown that the temporal focus of individuals can have a real effect on behavior. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study posits that temporal focus will affect adherence behavior regarding health control measures, such as social distancing, hand washing and mask wearing, which will be manifested through the degree of spread of COVID-19. It is suggested that social media can provide an indicator of the general temporal focus of the population at a particular time. In this study, we examine the temporal focus of Twitter text data and the number of COVID-19 cases in the US over a 317-day period from the inception of the pandemic, using text analytics to classify the temporal content of 0.76 million tweets. The data is then analyzed using dynamic regression via advanced ARIMA modelling, differencing the data, removing weekly seasonality and creating a stationary time series. The result of the dynamic regression finds that past orientation does indeed have an effect on the growth of COVID-19 cases in the US. However, a present focus tends to reduce the spread of COVID cases. Future focus had no effect in the model. Overall, the research suggests that detecting and managing temporal focus could be an important tool in managing public health during a pandemic.

Keywords: ARIMA model; COVID-19; Dynamic regression; Pandemic; Temporal focus; Text analytics.