Social media content about anxiety, theories of anxiety, and coping strategies in college students

<b>Objective:</b> To address current anxiety rates in college students by examining the impact of anxiety mindset on generalized anxiety symptoms and coping strategies and by characterizing student interaction with online anxiety content. <b>Methods:</b> Five hundred and eleven college students (aged 18-23) completed a cross-sectional, online survey that included validated self-report measures and additional questions regarding social media content. <b>Results:</b> Anxiety mindset moderated the relationship between generalized anxiety symptoms and problem-focused and emotional coping. Participants reported high rates of encountering anxiety content on social media, and often this content was encountered without intentionally searching for it. Seeing more hopeless anxiety content was related to greater generalized anxiety symptoms, avoidance coping, and more fixed mindsets of anxiety. <b>Conclusion:</b> Our results support the benefits of a growth mindset of anxiety over a fixed mindset of anxiety, and provide preliminary evidence of the harmful effects of anxiety content on social media.