User:Faith 2025/sandbox

Social media. How social media and news sources have impacts the effects of COVID-19. Studies have shown that since people are spending more time at home due to the pandemic this has caused them to spend more time watching tv and on social media. The amount of time people spend on electronics has increased over the course of the pandemic. According to a study, researchers found that people have only increased their screen time on average by 45 minutes, but there was a 72% increase in social media apps and a 54% increase in viewing the news coverage. Since people are spending more time on social media, they are having a harder time distinguishing between what is true and what is false when it comes to things on social media and the news. Due to this COVID-19 outbreak, people were using social media to communicate throughout the world about the pandemic, such as talk about personal protective equipment. Research has determined that adolescents have been spending more time on electronics instead of being physically active. As well as lessened physical activity, research as also shown that due to spending more time on electronics and social media, the impacts of various news sources and information displayed to the public has had a negative impact on mental health. The way that certain news sources portray information can be critical to the impact that it will have on the public. It could lead to mass panic if it is interpreted in that way from the news sources, or it could help to have a calming sense to help reassure the public to focus on the good rather than the bad. Social media can be an ally or an enemy depending how it is used. Research has shown that people tend to find emotional support in sharing information, they like to let others know what is going on with the pandemic as well as talk with others about the situation at hand. This also incorporates into time spent on social media as habits that are being created due to the limited contact with people as previously done before the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a new sense of normalcy. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was more infodemics out there but as the pandemic continued to progress and get worse, infodemics have went down. Research showed that these infodemics would have caused more mass panic and health concerns due to virus spreading. Another impact that social media can have on society is that certain authority figures can make a post or comment on a social media platform such as twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and then that information provided by those authority figures can contribute to the response that people have to the pandemic.