How Likes and Retweets Impacted Our Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The growing dependence on social media for health-related information boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, posing unprecedented challenges in navigating the vast amounts of information available right at our fingertips. Social media had a major impact on clinical decision-making affecting individuals, communities, and societies at large. In this review, we discuss the role of social media in amplifying information and misinformation as well as factors contributing to its reliance and prevalence. We review how medical providers have been impacted by this changing landscape, useful communication strategies to employ with in-office patient encounters, and how we can be active players in using social media as a tool for health promotion, correcting misinformation, and preparing for future pandemics.

Keywords: Allergy/immunology; COVID-19; Disinformation; Infodemic; Misinformation; Risk communication; Shared clinical decision-making; Social media; Telemedicine.