TORONTO, June 9, 2021 - Researchers from York University and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic.
The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase of vaccine rollout to the 2021 Capitol riot in the United States.
Countries with high social media use leading to off-line political action prior to the pandemic, as surveyed before the pandemic by V-Dem (a database from the University of Gothenburg), showed the strongest trend toward a high R0 - an indicator of how many secondary infections one infected individual is likely to cause - and a faster initial spread of the virus. For example, Canada when compared to the United States had a lower level of social media use leading to off-line action and a lower R0. A set of multiple factors, including social media, could explain the different outcomes between the two countries, although the findings do not imply causation.
"What we found was surprising, that the use of social media to organize off-line action tended to be associated with a higher spread rate of COVID-19. This highlights the need to consider the dynamic role that social media plays in epidemics," says Assistant Professor Jude Kong of York University's Faculty of Science, who led the research with University of British Columbia Postdoctoral Fellow Edward Tekwa.