Happy or lonely? Investigating mental well-being using remote methods during the COVID-19 pandemic in The Netherlands

Marije Kanis, Marijn Schraagen, Shihan Wang, Erik Tjong Kim Sang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Understanding the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on mental health and digital interactions
is crucial, but also difficult to study in times of physical distancing. This paper contributes to the
understanding of well-being in The Netherlands during the pandemic by employing mixed-remote
methods. Sentiments of the Dutch public expressed on X (formally Twitter) are analyzed with
AI techniques. Additionally, co-creative toolkits and probes, such as diaries, were used with older
adults and students for detailed in-situ capturing. The AI approach provides general insights,
while toolkit studies can address interpersonal variation and provide non-automated individual
feedback. Findings indicate that (1) the pandemic has impacted the expressed emotional states of
‘loneliness’ and ‘happiness’, (2) this varied over time, for example related to pandemic announcements, (3) there are differences between groups (such as young and old), and (4) the toolkits provided contextual self-reflective insights and active inspiration in support of mental well-being.
Original languageEnglish
JournalComputational Linguistics in the Netherlands Journal
Publication statusAccepted/In press - Jun 2025

Funding

We thank all participants, partners and contributors to this work. Particularly, we thank the Netherlands eScience Center, the Centres of Expertise of Creation Innovation (CoECI), and Urban Vitality. We acknowledge Berber Nauta, Daniël Bossen, Joey van der Bie, the staff and students from the AUAS minor Care technology, and minor Creative research, their coordinators Michel Alders and Marije ten Brink, and the AUAS Communication and Multimedia Design Department (CMD).

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