Social Distancing or Social media distancing?
During this ongoing pandemic, the term “social distancing” has been coined like never before. The USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines “social distancing” as a means of keeping a safe space of 6 feet between yourself and other people who are not from your household. By now, we all have recognized the importance of social distancing, and I do not want to stress more on it. But what about social media distancing? Do we have any definition for the same? What about the misinformation that is being shared and forwarded every day on our social media platforms? Is there any way where we can control it? Well, I think, yes…! But before I dive more into it, let me start with my personal experience to share.
A few days back, I was working on an assignment related to my research. Suddenly my phone blinked with a WhatsApp message. It was from one of my distant relatives. I took a moment to see what it was. The message was about — “10 daily practices that can protect you from coronavirus.” The first practice was — Sit in the sun from 7.30 am to 8.15 am every day. Early morning sunlight has the capacity……” I could not read more. I got back to my assignment. After a few minutes, my phone rang again. This time, it was a WhatsApp call from the same relative. After initial hi… hello talks, he came straight to the point — “Did you read the WhatsApp message that I sent you earlier…?” “Yes,” I replied. “You should follow them every day without fail,” he replied. “Who forwarded it to you?” I asked. “Well, it was a forward to one of my WhatsApp groups,” he replied. “Okay, but who has written that message? I mean, what is the source of information? Is if forwarded by any medical practitioner?”, I asked in anticipation. “No, I don’t know anything about that, but since it has been forwarded on so many groups, I think the source is credible,” he replied. I had nothing more to say…!
On another day, I got a call from my friend telling me that the coronavirus vaccine is ready to use for the public. I was sure that most of the vaccines are still on the verge of early clinical trials; it was a piece of misleading information. On being asked about the credibility of the news — “It was shared on one of the Facebook pages” was his answer. Well, this is something I am sure is happening to most of us in our daily lives. Fake news and misleading forwards have become part and parcel of today’s world. And thus, the valid question that I want to ask today is — is there a need for social distancing, or can social media distancing help us to educate ourselves better and avoid the spread of the deadly virus of misleading information?
Now coming back to my first question of whether we need to have a definition of social media distancing, the answer is loud and clear — YES..! Well, no such definition exists as of now. But if you ask me to formulate one — it will be something like this — “social media distancing can be defined as a practice, where you take time to read the entire forwarded message or a post, then check the credibility/source of information and after that if it completely makes sense to you then and then only forward/share it further.” Thus, social media distancing does not imply distancing oneself from using social media platforms. But instead, what I mean here is to distance ourselves from spreading the misinformation that is being forwarded or shared. I am not saying that everything that is forwarded or shared is misleading or unscientific. Some of it is authentic and informative. But again, that accounts for less than 10% of what is being forwarded or shared.
Misinformation (like the one about the vaccines or the cures) is often spread with hidden motives and thus can have a real and massive impact on the masses. Combating the misinformation related to coronavirus is essential and a need for the current time. A false news about vaccines, unscientific measures claiming to control or kill coronavirus along with the quotes from the so-called nonexistential experts, can overall have more dangerous effects than viruses itself. Thus, having a sense of “social literacy” is extremely important to stop this chain of misleading information.
Hence my urge to you all is that next time, if you come across any forwarded message or shared post, take a moment to read it thoroughly, do your research and then if you feel it is valid and authentic, only then forward it to your distant relatives otherwise isolate it to stop it’s further spreading..!!
Till then, happy reading…!