• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 24, 2020

Mental health remains a major national concern for all, including those working in the advertising industry, as COVID-19 cases rise, civil unrest continues, and negativity about politics spreads throughout social sounding boards like Facebook.

On Blind’s anonymous professional network, with more than 3.6 million verified users, the company gauged the emotional well-being of its members in terms of anxiety levels, feelings of loneliness, and productivity during social distancing.

The data analyzes the feeling of 3,279 respondents in late March, and then again between June 15 and June 23, to compare the two. Blind also broke out an analysis of the feeling of more than 90 advertising employees who participated.

Feelings of loneliness rose 11%, with 64% of professionals saying they feel increasingly lonely during work-at-home orders from June 15 through June 23, compared with 53% in March.

By company, 70% of Amazon employees said they feel increasingly lonely during this time period in June, compared with 67% of Apple professionals, and 66% of Microsoft.

Of the 95 execs participating in the survey who work in the advertising industry, 60% said they feel an increased sense of loneliness, compared with 40% who do not.

As one might expect from the comments on the social network,  introverts have a much easier time working from home.

Anxiety rose by 5% in June compared with March dates. When users were asked whether they are experiencing increased feelings of anxiety during work-from-home and social distancing, 61% of professionals said yes, compared with 56% in March.

Some 93% of Indeed.com professionals said they feel increasingly anxious, followed by 79% of Salesforce professionals, 67% of Amazon professionals, and 63% of Microsoft professionals.

Breaking out the numbers that are specific to professionals working in the advertising industry, 63% of the 90 respondents said they are experiencing increased feeling of anxiety, compared with 27% who are not.

Most people prefer the flexibility they are given, although productivity has been impacted by an additional 5% due to changes in mental health, according to the data. Some 58% of professionals said their productivity has been impacted in June, compared with 53% in March.

About 70% of Facebook professionals said their productivity levels have been impacted, followed by 66% of those working at Google, and 62% of those working at Amazon.

Finally, of those working in the advertising industry, 63% said their productivity has been impacted more in June compared with March. About 37% said it has not been impacted more in June compared with March.