ABSTRACT
Social media has become an indispensable part of our lives today owing to the smartphone era in this digital age. Even more so, when COVID-19 became an epidemic in China and then spread rapidly throughout the world, thus becoming a pandemic, social media was the major means for people to communicate and share their thoughts, opinions, experiences, and any other information on a global front. Lockdowns enforced in many countries and their states brought the geographically distant population digitally closer. However, the role of social media in this pandemic situation has been both positive and negative. In this review, we explore both these aspects and try to identify gaps where we can improve to minimize the negative effects. The major themes of positive influence that are discussed are viz the positive dissemination of information on a global scale, psychological and other support, prediction of COVID-19 trends and characteristics, government policy enforcement, gauging public attitude, social media marketing, and technological shift in the educational front. The major themes of negative influence are viz the COVID-19 “infodemic,” deterioration of mental health of individuals, and negative public attitude. This review is organized as follows: section one introduces the basic aspects of social media and its impact; sections two and three explore the positives and negatives respectively; section four deals with future prospects that may fill the gaps and create a regulated and responsible global network; and finally, section five finishes with a gist of the discussion and highlights the more positive influence that social media has had in various spheres of our lives while coping with the pandemic.
