Human beings are inquisitive in nature. We are continuously in hunt of information that concerns our everyday lives. COVID 19 has been another enormous issue to inquire since its emergence in 2019. This rapidly spreading virus has totally created a great deal of turmoil, chaos and uncertainty.
With the lockdown and social restrictions, people have been more confined within the walls of their homes and precisely,more within gadgets like smart phones and laptops. We are now used to with “working from home” concept and online platforms like ZOOM, Google Meet for various teaching learning and meeting purposes. Besides various online media social media has also been another major platform for information sharing. With 2.74 billion users Facebook is the most widely used social media platform followed by Youtube, WhatsApp, facebook messenger, Instagram and Tiktok. These social media are used by majority of the population to share the feelings, activities, information, promotion and entertainment. While these platforms have obviously positive aspects in terms of information sharing and getting connected with friends and families during the time of crisis, but the dark side of social media has been rarely considered. The information shared in these platforms from unauthentic sources, especially at the times of crisis, have created a havoc among the general public who are not much able distinguish or filter the information.The World Health Organization has declared this epidemic spread of misleading information(infodemic) as a major challenge in the global attempt to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.And ultimately this will lead to stress, fear and related psychological issues among the general public.
Following the second wave of COVID 19 surge, social platform such as facebook could be seen covered with photos and videos of the people starving from oxygen, cremating the bodies of people who died of COVID 19, bullying the government, publicizing the misinformation and so on.In an instance, I was astonished to observe people who are sensible and well informed sharing the news and information without checking the dates and its authenticity. The very example lately that got trolledwas “If you go to the government hospital, you are not sure of returning back home alive while if you go to the private hospital, you may not be able to save your house.” While this statement carries some truth with regard to preparedness and management of crisis by the government, but myself working in a tertiary level government hospital am a witness of the falsity of this calim. This kind of information sharing will shatter the confidence of frontline health workers who are working on back to back duties and make them more vulnerable.
People are seen ahead in sharing the death, negative propaganda, politicizing every act of government and not abiding to the general measures to be followed during the time of crisis. This aches more when you find majority of productive and young adults being available for such insane activities.Such misinformation will also be read by the COVID-19 positive patients and family membersmaking them threatened and more stressful. And such stressful media content may aggravatethe symptoms like disturbed sleep pattern, palpitations, recurrent thoughts, fear of uncertainty, inability to sit still, lack of focus, change in eating habits and so on. It can also precipitate the physical symptoms such as headaches, back pain, upset stomach, heavy chest and other problems. While we all are engaged in searching for main stream treatment to completely eradicate the virus and experimenting various alternative therapies to boost up our immune, we are not aware or considering the negativeimpact of stress which is directly or indirectly contributing to lower our immunity. And one such factor that has been lately contributing to increased stress is misuse of social media platforms.
Despite this misutilization of social media by a majority, still many people have been using the social media wisely.Social media can also be used in a positive way in time of crisis such as sharing the availability of beds, contact number of blood donors and ambulance, disseminating the toll free/ freely available number of doctors and nurses for tele-consultation, conducting webinar on relevant topics, recreation for COVID 19 positive patients and also sharing a message of hope and acknowledgement to frontline workers.
With the lockdown and social restrictions, many colleges and schools has been shutdown and turned to virtual platform.At this time, students and even the teachers could volunteer to form a social networking group to create mass awareness on basic precaution measures such as hand hygiene, use of mask and social distancing. Those health workers who are not working as a frontliner could be useful in spreading positive news, debunking the myths and stigma and in connecting with frontliners and sharing their concerns.
They can also co-ordinate with various national and international organizations to raise funds and make a channel for distributing needed supplies such as masks, soap, sanitizer, and thermometer and if possible pulse oximeter. We can only be able to get over this situation through careful planning and wisely implementing the strategies to overcome this crisis situation.If we together channeled our energy in a healthy way, we can definitely be able to deal with this virus and get victory over this unprecedented crisis.
(Thapa is a Senior Instructor at Department of Psychiatric Nursing, College of Nursing, B.P.Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan.)
