Social media infodemics and social distancing under the COVID-19 pandemic: public good provisions under uncertainty

ABSTRACT

This debate examines the impact of infodemics – an over-abundance of information – on social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its external effects, social distancing behavior (SDB) shares fundamental properties with public goods, whose potential for undersupply has been examined extensively in the social sciences. Although the negative effects of infodemics have been emphasized by governments and international organizations, theoretical models suggest that infodemics may work as a mitigation mechanism. That is, infodemics may enhance people’s SDBs. Based on original survey data, we show that media exposure can positively increase SDB. We conclude by discussing two public health implications. First, the media plays an important role in motivating SDB. Second, even if infodemics can increase SDB, we must be wary of their ability to pose other, non-negligible dangers.

KEYWORDS:

• Social distancing
• infodemics
• risk aversion
• public good
• social media

Responsible Editor

Maria Nilsson

Responsible Editor

Maria Nilsson

Acknowledgments

This paper is prepared with support from the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, and its institute-wide joint research project, “Methodology of Social Sciences: How to Measure Phenomena and Values.” We also thank three anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.

Authors contributions

Cato (survey design, writing, data analysis); Iida (survey design, data collection); Ishida (survey design, data analysis); Ito (survey design, data interpretation); Katsumata (survey design, data analysis, data interpretation); McElwain (survey design, writing, data interpretation); Shoji (survey design, writing, data analysis).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics and consent

Our survey was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. All survey participants, sampled by Rakuten Insight, gave prior consent to participate in the anonymous survey and were informed of their right to quit at any time. They could skip or choose ‘I do not want to answer’ to every question. There was no false information provided in the survey, and respondents were informed of the purpose of the study in the debriefing statement.

Paper context

This study examines the impact of infodemics—an over-abundance of information—on social distancing under the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the negative effects of infodemics have been emphasized by governments and international organizations, theoretical models suggest that infodemics may work as a mitigation mechanism. Utilizing empirical evidence of this mitigation effect based on an original survey, we argue that an over-abundance of information can actually encourage social distancing. However battling infodemics requires a long-run perspective that takes mental health into account.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by KAKENHI (JP17H02478, JP18K01501, JP20K01689, 20H01446), the Mitsubishi Foundation (ID201920011), and the Group-Joint-Research Project Grant (‘Social Sciences of Digitalization’) of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo.