We designed and conducted two IRB-approved qualitative case studies at two public university in two different states of the United States of America with the interval of 3 years. Our first study was conducted online via the Zoom and Skype affordances during the COVID-19 lockdown. The second follow-up project by our researchers' team which took place during the post-COVID times was concerned with the same field of study. We grounded our research studies in Vygotsky’s (1978; 1987) socio-cultural constructivism. The purpose of the both qualitative case studies was to understand the nature of the effects from the social media and mass media on the college students specifically during the pandemic lockdown and at the post-covid times. The participants in our project were the American and International college-age students enrolled at the university programs. The major research questions were: “What possible effects may social media have on college students' health, well-being, academic, and social behaviors?” and “In what ways, if at all, did the social and mass media affect or change the students thinking, emotional and psychological state, and decision-making?” We recruited our research subjects through the word of mouth. In accordance with Seidman's (2014) postulates, we interviewed our subjects individually and in small groups. Our research team sought our participants' revelations on the levels of their involvement with the social media and mass media and the changes in their perceptions, beliefs, knowledge, trust, and self-perceptions resulting from the information they obtained from the diverse media sources. We audio-recorded and transcribed all the interviews. We utilized Saldana's (2015) thematic coding in order to analyze the ideas revealed by our research participants and identify the recurring themes. We looked for the recurring themes in the speeches by our participants. Upon completion of the data collection for both projects, we analyzed and compared the findings. This research found multiple positive and negative effects from usage of the available to the modern days' American college students mass media and social media. Our studies found that the negative effects prevailed and outweighed the benefits of using the social media by the young International and American college student populations. The significance and the great value of our study for the vast college student populations is in our raising awareness of the predominantly unknown to this population negative effects on the youth's mental health, well-being, and academic achievement, etc. Our research participants shared that they had no prior educational experiences with media literacy. This knowledge and awareness have a strong potential to help the American and International college students to avoid or reduce the negative effects from the usage of diverse media. Another implication of our study is in the acute necessity of the Media Literacy Education embedded in the school curricula on all grade levels or offered as college courses world-wide. One of the limitations of our study is that it was conducted only in two states of the United States of America with a relatively small number of participants. More research projects are needed in the field of Media Literacy and the Effects from Media on the Diverse Higher Education Student Populations, while the research studies need to be conducted not only nation-wide in the United States but, most importantly, globally.

The presented research used the qualitative case study method. We designed our project in accordance with the Ely et al. (1994) qualitative research principals. Though the number of participants was relatively small, our team of researchers went deep into the topics addressed by our subjects during our semi-structured interviews (Seidman, 2013), which we selected as the major instrument for our study. Additionally, we conducted the site and participant observations (Spradley, 1980). Most importantly, in order to deeper understand the current chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981), we engaged in the social media observations at the periods of time when our project was conducted during the COVID-19 lockdown and during the post-COVID times. We randomly collected social media posts and announcements related to the COVID and pandemics thematic. We also regularly took the numeric data suing the nationally accredited and the reliable International media sources. We triangulated all our data (Saldana, 2105) collected from the participant interviews and observations, social media, and the National and international media sources. We used thematic coding (Saldana, 2013) to code and analyze our data. We looked for the recurring themes in all the data collected. Upon completion of the second, follow-up project, we engaged in the comparative analysis of the data obtained through both parts of our extended project. We assembled all the research findings in a report, drew conclusions, outlined the limitations, and suggested the implications for the further research.

Our research found that our participants, the American and International college students massively lack education the field of Medial Literacy. All our subjects confessed they had never been offered any course work nor public or private school classes concerning mass media or social media literacy. Our subjects trusted the printed word of the available to them publications. They have never thought of verifying any information presented to the mass audiences on TV in the United States or Internationally. Our team of researchers interrogated the participants specifically on the topics frequently viewed, read, and tracked by ourselves in the mass media and social media posts during the COVID-19 lockdown and afterwards. We found that our participants not only trusted that information but allowed themselves to be manipulated and followed the directions provided by the unknown manipulators and guidelines of actions, such as purchasing certain goods not at all related to the COVID-19 necessities nor recommended by the health-care professionals. Our research also found the tendency to depressive thoughts and behaviors in young people, which stemmed from the social distancing, isolation, and masking policies. Another significant finding was the negative influence from the social media on the young college students where the latter chose to decline healthy lifestyles promoted by the official medical professionals and selected to engage in unhealthy contradictory practices manifested by some irresponsible users of social nets. The great significance of our project is in our disclosing the types of negative influence on the young college students from the "fake prophets" and gamers who publish fraudulent postings in the social media. We also suggest the ways to resist the negative effects from the unverified media. We advocate for the media literacy education for the great benefit of our young college student populations in the USA and globally.

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