Maya Pearl
An Escape: COVID-19 and Social Media
Although social media can abate the psychological effects of quarantine, it cannot replace human interaction and spending time with others in a physical space. Studies on the impact of quarantine report that people can feel confusion, anger, and suffer from PTSD in more intense cases.¹ The meme above uses humor to reflect on this struggle and creatively suggests that it’s okay to develop imaginary escape plans if it helps pass the time.
Social media has served as a source of entertainment, news, and social interaction in more important and influential ways than ever before. The media influencer agency, Obviously, conducted a study that found a 76% increase in daily accumulated likes on their campaigns over the last two weeks.² On average people are spending much more time on social media, and it is important to understand both positive and negative implications of this change.
I believe that the impact of increased social media usage will widen the scope of people that individuals follow, but will lessen the depth of information that they consume. In the context of surveillance studies, I think this will bring up interesting questions that scholars and social media users alike might grapple with. For example, is browsing a friend’s profile surveillance? What about a friend of a friend’s profile? What about a random person? These questions are not unique to social media usage during this pandemic but will become more important as more people are involved.