Estimation of Chronic Academic Stress among college students using short form video contents

Chronic stress, especially among young adults, is a pervasive threat that can lead to various mental and physical illnesses. Measuring stress is crucial for timely intervention, but existing methods like self-reporting scales and physiological sensors are often invasive, require specialized equipment, or suffer from response biases. This research investigates whether engagement patterns with popular short-form video content can serve as an indirect estimator of chronic mental stress levels. The underlying premise is that interacting with short videos through likes/reactions has become a habitual behavior, especially among youth, potentially alleviating biases from conscious self-reporting. The study aims to develop multimodal representations for short-form videos in Indic languages and analyze engagement data from 22 participants to identify possible stressors and construct a causal model linking video content, engagement patterns, and inferred stress levels, this method could allow us to discreetly understand their mental health status, so we can provide help and support when needed.