International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)

Current Issue

By Issue

By Author

By Subject

Author Index

Keyword Index

About Journal

Aims and Scope

Editorial Board

Publication Ethics

Indexing and Abstracting

Peer Review Process

Journal Metrics

Open Access Policy

Language editing services

Misinfodemic and cyberchondria experiences among Indians during COVID-19 pandemic

Document Type : Articles

Authors

Tumkur University

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled the surge of various kinds of misinformation, hoax, conspiracy theories and rumours which have challenged the health systems all over the globe. The present study explored how Indians responded to the Misinfodemic, as a notice as well as an information sharer during the deadly pandemic. The study also elucidated the cyberchondria experiences among the Indians due to the misinfodemic. An online survey questionnaire was used to identify the respondents and to collect the needed data for the study (N=266). The result showed that the majority of the participants noticed misinformation regarding the outbreak on various internet platforms predominantly social media. The misinformation led the participants to a spectrum of mental health issues like stress, anxiety, anger, insomnia and depression. 9.80% of participants admitted themselves sharing misinformation regarding the outbreak and men did more compared to females (16.9% to 9.2%) (t143.006 = 1.572, p =.001). The misinfodemic resulted in increasing the health anxiety of the participants and there was no significant difference among the gender in experiencing health anxiety. The findings of the study provide functional insights for advancing communication research through misinformation correction and misperception management during these kinds of unknown (medicine and treatment) pandemic situations.https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.20088302.2022.20.3.15.2  

Keywords

References
  1. Al-garadi, M. A., Khan, M. S., Varathan, K. D., Mujtaba, G., & Al-Kabsi, A. M. (2016). Using online social networks to track a pandemic: A systematic review. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 62, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2016.05.005
  2. Alimardani, M., & Elswah, M. (2020). Online Temptations: COVID-19 and Religious Misinformation in the MENA Region. Social Media and Society, 6(3), 4–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120948251
  3. Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M., & Yu, C. (2019). Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media. Research and Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168019848554
  4. Barua, Z., Barua, S., Aktar, S., Kabir, N., & Li, M. (2020). Effects of misinformation on COVID-19 individual responses and recommendations for resilience of disastrous consequences of misinformation. Progress in Disaster Science, 8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2020.100119
  5. Bode, L., & Vraga, E. K. (2018). See Something, Say Something: Correction of Global Health Misinformation on Social Media. Health Communication, 33(9), 1131–1140. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1331312
  6. Bueno-Notivol, J., Gracia-Garcia, P., Olaya, B., Lasheras, I., Lopez-Anton, R., & Santabarbara, J. (2020). Prevalence of depression during the COVID-19 outbreak: A meta-analysis of community-based studies. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2020.07.007
  7. Chary, M. A., Overbeek, D. L., Papadimoulis, A., Sheroff, A., & Burns, M. M. (2020). Geospatial correlation between COVID-19 health misinformation and poisoning with household cleaners in the Greater Boston Area. Clinical Toxicology, 0(0), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/15563650.2020.1811297
  8. Chen, X., Sin, S. C. J., Theng, Y. L., & Lee, C. S. (2015a). Why Students Share Misinformation on Social Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-level Differences. Journal of Academic Librarianship. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.07.003
  9. Chen, X., Sin, S. C. J., Theng, Y. L., & Lee, C. S. (2015b). Why Students Share Misinformation on Social Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-level Differences. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41(5), 583–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.07.003
  10. Cheng, Y., & Luo, Y. (2020). The presumed influence of digital misinformation: examining US public’s support for governmental restrictions versus corrective action in the COVID-19 pandemic. Online Information Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-08-2020-0386
  11. Chou, W. S., Oh, A., & Klein, W. M. P. (2018). Addressing Health-Related Misinformation on Social Media. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, 372. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.16865
  12. Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C. M., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A. L., … Scala, A. (2020). The COVID-19 Social Media Infodemic. Scientific Reports, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5
  13. Delmastro, M., & Zamariola, G. (2020). Depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 and lockdown: a cross-sectional study on the Italian population. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79850-6
  14. Digital TK. (2020). Top 10 most popular social networking sites in India. Retrieved January 5, 2021, from https://digitaltk.com/top-10-most-popular-social-networking-sites-in-india/
  15. Donovan, J. (2020). Concrete Recommendations for Cutting Through Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 110(S3), S286–S287. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305922
  16. Dsouza, D. D., Quadros, S., Hyderabadwala, Z. J., & Mamun, M. A. (2020). Aggregated COVID-19 suicide incidences in India: Fear of COVID-19 infection is the prominent causative factor. Psychiatry Research, 290, 113145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113145
  17. Eqbal, R., Afnan, R., & Walaa, R. (2020). The role of social media in spreading panic among primary and secondary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic: An online questionnaire study from the Gaza Strip, Palestine. Heliyon, 6(12). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05807
  18. Ethical Journalism Network. (2020). “Fake News” | Deep Fakes | Information Disorder | Disinformation | Misinformation | Mal-information. Retrieved December 21, 2020, from https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/tag/fake-news/page/4
  19. Ghenai, A., & Mejova, Y. (2017). Catching Zika Fever: Application of Crowdsourcing and Machine Learning for Tracking Health Misinformation on Twitter. Proceedings - 2017 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, ICHI 2017, 518. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICHI.2017.58
  20. Gupta, L., Gasparyan, A. Y., Misra, D. P., Agarwal, V., Zimba, O., & Yessirkepov, M. (2020). Information and misinformation on COVID-19: A cross-sectional survey study. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 35(27), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3346/JKMS.2020.35.E256
  21. Hatcher, W. (2020). A Failure of Political Communication Not a Failure of Bureaucracy: The Danger of Presidential Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Review of Public Administration, 50(6–7), 614–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020941734
  22. Hou, F., Bi, F., Jiao, R., Luo, D., & Song, K. (2020). Gender differences of depression and anxiety among social media users during the COVID-19 outbreak in China:a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09738-7
  23. Islam, A. K. M. N., Laato, S., Talukder, S., & Sutinen, E. (2020). Technological Forecasting & Social Change Misinformation sharing and social media fatigue during COVID-19 : An a ff ordance and cognitive load perspective. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 159(July), 120201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120201
  24. Jaiswal, J., LoSchiavo, C., & Perlman, D. C. (2020). Disinformation, Misinformation and Inequality-Driven Mistrust in the Time of COVID-19: Lessons Unlearned from AIDS Denialism. AIDS and Behavior, 24(10), 2776–2780. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-020-02925-y
  25. Jayaseelan, R., Brindha, D., & Waran, K. (2020). Social Media Reigned by Information or Misinformation About COVID-19: A Phenomenological Study. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3596058
  26. Jungmann, S. M., & Witthoft, M. (2020). Health anxiety, cyberchondria, and coping in the current COVID-19 pandemic: Which factors are related to coronavirus anxiety? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102239
  27. Kim, H. K., Ahn, J., Atkinson, L., & Kahlor, L. A. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 Misinformation on Information Seeking, Avoidance, and Processing: A Multicountry Comparative Study. Science Communication, 42(5), 586–615. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020959670
  28. Krause, N. M., Freiling, I., Beets, B., & Brossard, D. (2020). Fact-checking as risk communication: the multi-layered risk of misinformation in times of COVID-19. Journal of Risk Research, 0(0), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1756385
  29. Laato, S., Islam, A. K. M. N., Islam, M. N., & Whelan, E. (2020). What drives unverified information sharing and cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic? European Journal of Information Systems, 29(3), 288–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1770632
  30. Li, H. O. Y., Bailey, A., Huynh, D., & Chan, J. (2020). YouTube as a source of information on COVID-19: A pandemic of misinformation? BMJ Global Health, 5(5). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002604
  31. Lim, S., & Kwon, N. (2010). Gender differences in information behaviour concerning Wikipedia, an unorthodox information source? Library and Information Science Research, 32(3), 212–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2010.01.003
  32. Lobato, E. J. C., Powell, M., Padilla, L. M. K., & Holbrook, C. (2020). Factors Predicting Willingness to Share COVID-19 Misinformation. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(September). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566108
  33. Luengo, M., & Garcia-Marin, D. (2020). The performance of truth: politicians, fact-checking journalism, and the struggle to tackle COVID-19 misinformation. American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 8(3), 405–427. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-020-00115-w
  34. Ma, L., Lee, C. S., & Goh, D. H. L. (2014). Understanding news sharing in social media: An explanation from the diffusion of innovations theory. Online Information Review, 38(5), 598–615. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-10-2013-0239
  35. Makarla, S., Gopichandran, V., & Tondare, D. (2019). Prevalence and correlates of cyberchondria among professionals working in the information technology sector in Chennai, India: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 65(2), 87–92. https://doi.org/10.4103/jpgm.JPGM_293_18
  36. Malhotra, P. (2020). A Relationship-Centered and Culturally Informed Approach to Studying Misinformation on COVID-19. Social Media and Society, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120948224
  37. Manu, K. (2020). Over 300 dead, 1000 ill in Iran after consuming industrial alcohol in the belief it cures coronavirus. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from
  38. https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/over-300-dead-1000-ill-in-iran-after-consuming-industrial-alcohol-in-belief-it-cures-coronavirus/570334
  39. Mavridis, G. (2018). Fake news and Social Media How Greek users identify and curb misinformation online.
  40. Memon, S. A., & Carley, K. M. (2020). Characterizing COVID-19 misinformation communities using a novel twitter dataset. ArXiv.
  41. Motta, M., Stecula, D., & Farhart, C. (2020). How right-leaning media coverage of Covid-19 facilitated the spread of misinformation in the early stages of the pandemic in the U.S. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 335–342. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423920000396
  42. Murri, R., Segala, F. V., Del Vecchio, P., Cingolani, A., Taddei, E., Micheli, G., & Fantoni, M. (2020). Social media as a tool for scientific updating at the time of COVID pandemic: Results from a national survey in Italy. PLoS ONE, 15(9 September), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238414
  43. Narayan Subudhi, R., & Palai, D. (2020). Impact of Internet Use during COVID Lockdown. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research, 2((S)), 59–66. https://doi.org/10.37534/bp.jhssr.2020.v2.ns.id1072.p59
  44. Nepon, J., Belik, S. L., Bolton, J., & Sareen, J. (2010). The relationship between anxiety disorders and suicide attempts: Findings from the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. Depression and Anxiety. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20674
  45. Obiała, J., Obiała, K., Manczak, M., Owoc, J., & Robert, O. (2020). COVID-19 misinformation: Accuracy of articles about coronavirus prevention mostly shared on social media. Health Policy and Technology.
  46. Pennycook, G., Mcphetres, J., Zhang, Y., & Rand, D. G. (2020). Fighting COVID-19 misinformation on social media: Experimental evidence for a scalable accuracy nudge intervention. Psychological Science, 31(7), 770–780. https://doi.org/10.1177/095679762093905
  47. Rosenberg, H., Syed, S., & Rezaie, S. (2020). The Twitter pandemic: The critical role of Twitter in the dissemination of medical information and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, 22(4), 418–421. https://doi.org/10.1017/cem.2020.361
  48. Roy, A., Singh, A. K., Mishra, S., Chinnadurai, A., Mitra, A., & Bakshi, O. (2020). Mental health implications of COVID-19 pandemic and its response in India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020950769
  49. Sareen, J., Cox, B. J., Afifi, T. O., de Graaf, R., Asmundson, G. J. G., ten Have, M., & Stein, M. B. (2005). Anxiety Disorders and Risk for Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts. Archives of General Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.62.11.1249
  50. Starcevic, V., & Schimmenti, A. (2020). Cyberchondria in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hum Behav & Emerg Tech, (September), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.233
  51. Vraga, E. K., & Bode, L. (2020). Defining Misinformation and Understanding its Bounded Nature: Using Expertise and Evidence for Describing Misinformation. Political Communication, 37(1), 136–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1716500
  52. Xiong, J., Lipsitz, O., Nasri, F., Lui, L. M. W., Gill, H., & Phan, L. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the general population: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, (January). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.001
International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)
Volume 20, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
July 2022
Pages 257-276
Files
History
  • Receive Date: 25 October 2021
  • Revise Date: 30 September 2023
  • Accept Date: 03 December 2022
Share
How to cite
Statistics