Antecedents and Consequences of Misinformation Sharing Behavior among Adults on Social Media during COVID-19

Abstract

Misinformation has been existed for centuries, though emerge as a severe concern in the age of social media, and particularly during COVID-19 global pandemic. As the pandemic approached, a massive influx of mixed quality data appeared on social media, which had adverse effects on society. This study highlights the possible factors contributing to the sharing and spreading misinformation through social media during the crisis. Preferred Reporting Items and Meta-Analysis guidelines were used for systematic review. Anxiety or risk perception associated with COVID-19 was one of the significant motivators for misinformation sharing, followed by entertainment, information seeking, sociability, social tie strength, self-promotion, trust in science, self-efficacy, and altruism. WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used platforms for spreading rumors and misinformation. The results indicated five significant factors associated with COVID-19 misinformation sharing on social media, including socio-demographic characteristics, financial considerations, political affiliation or interest, conspiracy ideation, and religious factors. Misinformation sharing could have profound consequences for individual and society and impeding the efforts of government and health institutions to manage the crisis. This SLR focuses solely on quantitative studies, hence, studies are overlooked from a qualitative standpoint. Furthermore, this study only looked at the predictors of misinformation sharing behavior during COVID-19. It did not look into the factors that could curb the sharing of misinformation on social media platforms as a whole. The study’s findings will help the public, in general, to be cautious about sharing misinformation, and the health care workers, and institutions, in particular, for devising strategies and measures to reduce the flow of misinformation by releasing credible information through concerned official social media accounts. The findings will be valuable for health professionals and government agencies to devise strategies for handling misinformation during public health emergencies.

Confronting misinformation related to health and the environment: a systematic review

“…Misinformation related to scientific topics, especially on controversial topics about the environment [e.g., global warming and climate change - Ecker et al, 2022;Lubchenco, 2017;Kolmes, 2011] and health [e.g., vaccination -Gostin, 2014;Whitehead et al, 2023], are considered major global concerns. Given the urgency to understand the phenomenon, research focused on the analysis of misinformation were conducted, with the aim of understanding patterns of language [Nsoesie & Oladeji, 2020], typologies [Kapantai et al, 2021], means of circulation and dissemination in digital environments [Almaliki, 2019;Malik, Bashir & Mahmood, 2023;Wang et al, 2019], psychological aspects of belief systems of people who trust in misinformation [Tsamakis et al, 2022;Balakrishnan, 2022;Wang & Liu, 2022], perception of the public, health professionals and scientists on the topic [Lei et al, 2015;Cioe et al, 2020].…”

Magánegészségügyi szolgáltatók marketingtevékenységének megítélése a női döntéshozók körében

“…), amely ugyanakkor "folyamatos" figyelmet és "azonnali" reakciót igényel (Scott-Goode, 2020). Előnye, ami egyben a veszélye is, hogy a páciensek összehasonlíthatják és véleményezhetik az orvosokat és a magánegészségügyi szolgáltatókat, valamint azonnal megoszthatják tapasztalatukat és véleményüket az általuk kapott kezelésekről, az ellátás minőségéről vagy az orvosok vélt szakértelméről -mindennek veszélyét a COVID vakcinák esetén is megtapasztalhattuk (Malik et al, 2023). A sikeres közösségi média jelenlét alapja a releváns tartalmak rendszeres közzététele, illetve megosztása, valamint az ezekre adott interakciók hatékony kezelése.…”

The role of social media literacy in infodemic management: a systematic review

“…The emergence of social media has changed the models of collective action that were based on assumptions about human communication styles. The spread of false information on social networks seems inevitable in times of health and social crises ( 20 ).…”