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INTRODUCTION: The world is currently in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to an increase in internet usage including social media. This study was carried out in order to discover how the pandemic affected the Maltese population who use social media networks daily. METHODS: A dataset comprising more than 50,000 comments and in excess of 150,000 interactions were extracted from Facebook over four months. The method was quantitative and qualitative. Pearson correlation was used to analyse trends. RESULTS: Online interaction increased 200% between February–April 2020, with a significant positive correlation. There was also a significant correlation between online interaction and engagement and the Covid-19 situation in Malta (p ≪ 0.0001). Online posts portraying a sense of care, affection, and unity increased by more than 300% over the same period, and this also significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases in Malta (p ≪ 0.0001). An increase in the number of COVID-19 cases had an emotional impact mainly on anxiety and agitation. DISCUSSION: The pandemic has unleashed a veritable ‘infodemic’ (an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not). Social media engagement may have been resorted to not only to seek information but also to interact with friends and family who were not physically accessible due to social distancing measures. Yet another reason could have been to seek comfort and reassurance by interacting with those closest to us. Social media is not only an everyday tool but also a haven of last resort when physical connection is not possible.
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10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2020.105255
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document_parses/pdf_json/68de81c52a74d08c949211d0db43fd9c8c3b622f.json
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document_parses/pmc_json/PMC7834354.xml.json
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The way in which COVID-19 changed behaviour on social media in Malta
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