Role of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: Beneficial, destructive, or reconstructive?

Abstract

The world is facing the extensive spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2. This epidemic puts intensive pressure on healthcare, economic, and social structures. Commitment to implementing effective approaches for public health will take bold interventions by public health professionals and strong leadership by the nation's governing bodies. During this crisis, lack of awareness, knowledge, and preparedness would put people and health care staff at risk. The dilemma is how to pass the knowledge of current disease statistics and its prevention to the general population at a rate equivalent to or better than the spreading epidemic. At the same time, 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. Thus, delivering fast, accurate and reliable information addressing critical problems of infection control is, therefore, of key importance. This review outlines both the positive and negative impact of social media during coronavirus epidemic on health-care professionals and on the general population. However, if used wisely and prudently, social media serves as a powerful tool for changing people's behavior and to promote the well-being of individual and public health. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Medical knowledge, Interpersonal and communication skills, Practice-based learning.