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Change in social media usage patterns

With the fast spread of COVID-19 around the world, it's caused a like-wise fast, abrupt transition in our daily lives. This transition has greatly affected our social interactions because of the new norm of social distancing. As social creatures, this isolation (some have been calling it a "social recession") does not come naturally to us; so it is no wonder that our desire to stay connected has trumped our physical distance through the usage of social media. In fact, what we have seen is a huge growth in the usage of social media in younger generations but also older generations! This seems pretty obvious since people now have more "free" time; for instance, the hour commute in the morning has now been replaced with an hour of scrolling, liking, tagging, sharing, etc. our social pages.

Overall, this is welcomed because it allows us some solace from the isolation. With this spike in usage, it is beneficial as well because of the ease of travel for information. We are able to keep updated at anytime--especially from many doctors and healthcare workers that use them. However what we can also see is the spread of misinformation and fear. For instance, there have been viral messaging knocking the use of ibruprofen when infected with COVID-19. I've personally seen numerous posts of " My cousin is a doctor who said...." followed by some old news, misinformation, or new treatment regimen. There's also been videos posted showing low stock of items at stores like toilet paper or bread, which has led to a lot of fear in the public. We can see this fear through the exponential growth in searches of coronavirus across platforms. The most interesting thing we see is that often it is searched with the name of the location where the person lives. I think this demonstrates the fear that people have as people are constantly seeking what is going on in their local area.




- By: Usman Toor

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