Social Media Responses to COVID-19
It’s sad when the bad side of social media is portrayed in a tweet from our very own president. In this tweet yesterday, Trump praises our country, the United States of America, for surpassing South Korea in numbers of coronavirus tests distributed overall. That sounds great — so why isn’t it?
Per capita, South Korea still dominates the US in test quantities distributed to their people. This means that percentage-wise, still more South Koreans are getting tested than Americans are. (Source below).
Trump is instilling a false sense of security to the United States, which is BAD; many people are not taking necessary precautions as seriously as they should, and Trump is leading our country in this false optimism. We are not as well-off as Trump indicates in this tweet.
While the fact he stated is technically true, the absolute number of tests is not as important as the number of tests per capita. Trump is using social media and cherry-picking tidbits of facts to make himself and his country look better off than he and we actually are.
On the positive side, plenty of people are going to social media to share good vibes and wholesome content to cheer each other up. One user shared this video of police in Spain driving around the streets to perform a song for (and with) the citizens on lockdown.
Despite social distancing, people are still coming together, and this tweet shows that.
Social media can be used to spread harmless positivity in the midst of a dark crisis. This video is harmless, unlike Trump’s tweet, because nothing is cherry-picked or fabricated about it. Replies to the tweet are of uplifted, inspired people, many sharing similar videos from their own location. This is how positivity spreads.
