What social media told us in the time of COVID-19: a scoping review

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has rapidly become a crucial communication tool for information generation, dissemination, and consumption. In this scoping review, we selected and examined peer-reviewed empirical studies relating to COVID-19 and social media during the first outbreak from November, 2019, to November, 2020. From an analysis of 81 studies, we identified five overarching public health themes concerning the role of online social media platforms and COVID-19. These themes focused on: surveying public attitudes, identifying infodemics, assessing mental health, detecting or predicting COVID-19 cases, analysing government responses to the pandemic, and evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos. Furthermore, our Review emphasises the paucity of studies on the application of...