COVID-19’s effect on social media

Social media has played a large role in many people’s lives since before the pandemic, however, COVID-19 has increased its significance. Platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok have had increases in engagement over the past few months during quarantine. 

Facebook for example, has seen an increase in monthly active users (MAU). In 2019 they had a total of 2.50 Billion MAU, and as of August 2020 they have 2.70 Billion MAU. With so many new users joining and engaging over quarantine, it raises the question of how they, and the pandemic, are affecting these platforms. 

Self isolation, social distancing, and quarantine mean limited social interaction. Due to this, where do people go? The internet. With so much free time, and no way to productively spend it, people resort to social media. So far in 2020, an average of 6 hours and 43 minutes are spent online each day. This means that more people are exposed to more things, and it allows for things to spread quicker and easier.

During the pandemic, social media platforms have been a way for people to express their new found creativity, style and beliefs. COVID has allowed people to discover themselves, and social media is where they express it freely. This brings about new trends and ideas based on current world issues, social dilemmas, and personal belief systems. These new trends and ideas impact how the social media platforms operate, and go about handling certain situations. The way companies and people handle these situations, show their intentions and beliefs.

The actions and reactions to specific situations show character. During quarantine, the character of many social media influencers was revealed. Some of the people at the top of the industry, very quickly moved to the bottom of it. A larger understanding of social issues have made it that those who publicly display themselves via social media are held to a higher standard because of the large influence they have on others. Time in quarantine has allowed this larger understanding to be reaching, thus impacting how things are taken and understood on social media.

COVID has caused social media to play a more significant part in our day to day lives. It also allowed us to recognize cruel intent and bad actions on the various platforms. We’re now more aware than before of how what we say and do on social media can impact us and others, thus affecting how the industry runs as a whole.