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Isolation and Use of Social Media by Autistic Individuals During Covid-19 Lockdown: Perceptions of Caregivers

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Social Computing and Social Media: Applications in Marketing, Learning, and Health (HCII 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12775))

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Abstract

This study explores the extent to which social media manages to meet the relational needs of individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) during Italy’s first COVID-19 lockdown (March – May, 2020). To this end 22 caregivers of people with ASD completed a questionnaire investigating the living conditions of the affected people during this time, their use of social media/communication tools, their anxiety levels, their perception of the usefulness of social media, and the types of cognitive and/or relational dysfunction. The results show that social media did not prove useful, even in situations of obvious need such as those experienced during the lockdown. Caregivers, however, viewed social media in a positive light only for those individuals with ASD who had used them already prior to the lockdown. Further studies are therefore needed to better design social media for the needs of people with ASD.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, P.zzo san Niccolò, via Roma 56, Siena, Italy

    Oronzo Parlangeli, Sonia Grifoni, Paola Palmitesta & Stefano Guidi

  2. Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, via Roma 56, Siena, Italy

    Alessandro Andreadis

  3. Centre for Innovative Human Systems (CIHS), School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Paul M. Liston

Authors
  1. Oronzo Parlangeli
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  2. Sonia Grifoni
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  3. Paola Palmitesta
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  4. Alessandro Andreadis
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  5. Paul M. Liston
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  6. Stefano Guidi
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Correspondence to Oronzo Parlangeli .

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  1. Department of Computer Science, Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

    Gabriele Meiselwitz

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Parlangeli, O., Grifoni, S., Palmitesta, P., Andreadis, A., Liston, P.M., Guidi, S. (2021). Isolation and Use of Social Media by Autistic Individuals During Covid-19 Lockdown: Perceptions of Caregivers. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media: Applications in Marketing, Learning, and Health. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12775. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77685-5_32

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77685-5_32

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