Social media role during pandemics

During sudden outbreaks, the public needs access to timely and reliable information about the disease symptoms, and their prevention. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is the first global health crisis in the age of social media. During this crisis, lack of awareness, knowledge, and preparedness would put people and health care staff at risk. A huge amount of health-threatening misinformation is spreading at a faster rate than the disease itself. The major proportion of this false rumor is disseminated in the web-2 era through social media. However, if used wisely and prudently, social media serves as a powerful tool for changing people’s behavior and promoting the well-being of individual and public health.

Billions of people are free to publicly share their opinions regarding a pandemic through various social media platforms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw individuals, organizations, and businesses use social media to spread awareness of the virus, as well as the public actions that can be taken. Until COVID-19, many of us hadn’t even heard of “social distancing,” which refers to staying at least 6 feet away from others to help prevent the spread of infection. When a complete lockdown was announced in March 2020, social media users, from friends and family to celebrities and governments called for social distancing and encouraged people to stay strong during their home quarantines. One of the benefits of social media during epidemic is that it enables this type of helpful and supportive information to easily be shared with a wide audience.

People were unable to come out of the shock for sometime and it was the social media platforms that helped them to a large extent in knowing what would function and what wouldn't during the lockdown.

The fact to be noted here is that the people are being able to share information regarding the availability of beds, oxygen supply, vaccine through social media during epidemics. Communication has not been so easy in the past and today many lives are being saved using social media. We are able to witness everyday the social media posts by various people explaining their needs and the help down by various celebrities and other good souls after seeing those posts. In this way, the world has understood the tremendous usage of social media today. KAHE, one of the top Engineering colleges in Coimbatore helps the students understand the need for an effective usage of the social media.

Similarly, the social media platforms are also helping the governments to tackle the pandemic by creating awareness among the people on the disease and its spread. The daily announcements given by the government to wear mask and be safe, are reaching the people faster through social media than traditional means. It enables them to be aware of the current situation, to follow the protocols and be ready to face the challenges.

Many brands and organizations also came up with fun ways to engage with people on social media, such as the Getty Museum asking people to recreate works of art using items found in their homes. Moreover, social media helped many people to engage themselves into some online works because the businesses were closed due to lockdown. Quarantine culture became trendy. The impact of social media on culture was never more profound than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Likewise, people also boasted and shamed panic buying by social media. At the start of the lockdown, many people excessively purchased household goods, sanitization products, and food in fear that necessities would no longer be accessible just like they do when there is a hurricane or some other natural disaster. This over purchasing became so commonplace that social media users coined a phrase to describe it: panic buying.

On social media, we saw panic buying discussed in two distinct ways: 1) people posting about their panic buying, showing images of carts filled with toilet paper, water bottles, and frozen meals; and 2) people posting pictures of empty shelves or other people's carts as a way to shame supposed panic buyers.

Fundraisers organized and distributed on social media to help raise money for those in need. COVID-19 put many people, especially the elderly, those with disabilities, working parents who lost childcare, and those who lost their jobs, in challenging situations. During the pandemic, communities rallied to support the organizations and individuals by sharing fundraisers with large audiences on social media. People also used social media to offer support in anyway they could, such as picking up groceries for individuals who were unable to leave home or sharing information on how to support struggling local businesses.

In addition, social media also offers a platform for online learning. During the COVID-19 outbreak, educational institutions were closed, and students worldwide were confined to their homes. In an educational environment, students depend on collaborative learning (CL) to improve their learning performance. This study aimed to increase the understanding of social media adoption among students during COVID-19 pandemic for collaborative learning. Social media provides a learning platform that enables students to easily communicate with their peers and subject specialists and are conducive to students' CL. This study addresses the key concept of collaborative learning during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing social media use among students in higher education. The relationship between social media use and students' performance is crucial to understanding the role of social media during epidemics. The research findings indicate that social media plays a significant role during epidemics because it provides opportunities for students to enhance CL under the aforementioned situations.

The study, “Responses to COVID-19 in higher education: Social media usage for sustaining formal academic communication in developing countries”, published in Sustainability on 12 August, show that social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp have been used effectively to sustain formal teaching and learning in Egyptian public higher education institutions which lacked technological platforms and formal online learning management system during COVID-19 shut down. The study reveals that most faculty members used Facebook or WhatsApp as the sole tool for academic communication with their students because online meeting platforms such as Google Classroom and Zoom were unfamiliar to students and no training was available.

For students, Facebook was the most adopted tool for formal academic communication, followed by WhatsApp (69.4%), YouTube (63.1%), Wikis (50.2%) and other social media (19.4%), for example, blogs and Twitter. A low proportion of students used LinkedIn for academic communication (6.5%).

The study, conducted by Abu Elnasr E Sobaih, Ahmed M Hasanein, and Ahmed E Abu Elnasr, focused on nine public higher education institutions in Egypt, offering tourism and hotel bachelor degrees and representing 597 full-time faculty members and about 12,000 undergraduate students. The results showed that in addition to sustaining formal teaching and learning, students used social media to build an online community and support each other, whereas faculty members were focused on teaching and learning.

The results of the study confirm that the proper usage of social media can promote a new era of social learning, social presence, and an alternative platform to foster online learning.

The policy-makers in public higher education in many developing countries have had a quick and good response to the COVID-19 pandemic by adopting a new culture of online learning using social media.

Paul Prinsloo, research professor in open distance learning in the department of business management at the University of South Africa (UNISA), told University World News that COVID-19 disruptions to teaching and learning, development cycles, administrative processes and support networks encouraged students and university staff to “self-organize” using WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.

“These media provided crucial contact at a time when university staff and students felt isolated, and in instances where official communication often broke down, these networks disseminated crucial information,” Prinsloo said.

Further, he said that “In my opinion, the use of social media enriches and diversifies information ecologies as well as playing a supportive role for formal learning networks, far beyond learning management systems.”

The media platforms assist in adopting virtual learning and teaching models to continue providing education in the interim of the COVID -19 pandemic.

Briefly, social media is a powerful way to bring positivity to a scary time. During a pandemic like COVID, social media platforms play a vital role than normal days. These platforms gave us the ability to share experiences with family and friends to help combat both literal and emotional isolation while also reminding us that we’re all in this together.

In the final analysis, social media is a great way for individuals and communities to stay connected when physically separated. It provided up-to-date and reliable information to the public regarding health, online job opportunities and education during the lockdown. But as the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, we face the challenge of an overabundance of information related to the virus. Some of this information may be false and potentially harmful. Everyone can help to stop such spread. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you should report it to the hosting social media platform.