Social media is being increasingly used for sharing life updates and business operations. It has become a virtual world where people go to find momentary happiness. While there are a lot of benefits that social media has to offer, there is one most important benefit of using social media as a means of communication during epidemics. It can be used as a tool to disseminate disease risks and precautions to promote a healthy lifestyle. The significant use of social media lies in the fact that it can be used as a data source to generate public awareness. However it can’t and never replace the traditional media sources, but can provide complementary information at the time of epidemics.
The latest example can be taken from COVID-19 outbreak wherein people are using social media heavily to spread any information that is related to the virus. After the COVID-19 has been declared as a pandemic by government, people became hyper active on social media spreading rumours and fake news. But that’s not how social media can be used at the time of epidemics, instead these rumours should be stopped. When people are already afraid of the virus, any such rumour will add on to their fear and affects their mental health.
When there are people spreading rumours, there is also a community of people who are spreading preventive measures and relevant information. Brands are also coming up with their own initiatives against corona and posting safety precautions to support government and public. Bing has officially launched a COVID-19 tracker to display the authentic data. It shows the number of confirmed cases worldwide. The data is further broken into active, recovered and fatal cases. People can also filter the data by geographic region.
Some of the genuine websites which you can refer for information related to spread of COVID-19 are-
https://covidout.in
https://bing.com/covid
https://www.mohfw.gov.in
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
https://www.projectbaseline.com/study/covid-19/
These are the websites which are regularly updating facts and figures related to corona virus. You can find genuine numbers here, nothing fake and no rumours. These type of websites show how digital media should be used at the time of epidemics. Digital media should be there to help people, rather than adding to their fears!
Team i-engage is dedicatedly involved in stopping the rumours wherever possible be it facebook, twitter, instagram or whatsapp. Our team is checking the posts on hashtags #covid19 #coronavirus and commenting on the rumours to stop them. You too can join us in this mission by commenting with the hashtag #falseengage
All the best!
