Negative Effects of Infodemic during COVID-19

Social media has become one of the main channels to receive new information but exposing oneself to it can also increase the chance of having anxiety and depression. Nowadays, the fastest and most convenient way for people to receive new information and health guidelines is through social media because of its speed of news updating and the huge variety of sources it has. Although social media does help us to receive information about the pandemic more rapidly, there are also negative effects of using social media such as increasing the prevalence of mental illness. Also, due to the large variety of sources that social media has, it had made fake news and misinformation spread faster and even further. According to a study about mental health and social media exposure, “82.0% of participants frequently expose them to social media, and frequently social media exposure associated high odds of anxiety and combination of depression and anxiety, which is consistent with previous studies” (Gao et al. 7). This study also has shown that there is a high prevalence of mental disorders during the outbreak of coronavirus and such high prevalence is related to exposing oneself to social media frequently. Other than the aforementioned, there are many studies that were done to prove the association between social media and mental disorders during different times of humanitarian crises.

Undoubtedly, during the outbreak of COVID-19, misinformation and false statements have flooded social media and aroused groundless fears among lots of netizens, which have caused them to be more confused about the current situation and also do damage to their mental health. In addition to that, many users had revealed and disclosed their thoughts and opinions about the virus with negative feelings, such as fear, worry, and anxiety on social media where emotions are contagious and can be spread. The study about overloaded information and infodemic had suggested that “searching the internet for COVID-19 related news which may result in confusion, disappointment, and frustration” (Rathore 164), makes the fact that infodemic does harm to our mental health more explicit. Besides that, the study also suggested that “reading about infection and death rates regularly can adversely affect morale and mental health during this time of lockdown and isolation” (Rathore 165), indicating that viewing a considerable amount of information about the pandemic does impact our mental health negatively.