Digital Disinformation and Mental Health: How Misinformation is Creating a New Public Health Crisis

As ways of communicating, learning, and socializing turn digital, the pandemic continues to change just about every aspect of life. From Zoom classes, to Facebook Messaging, to bingeing Netflix shows, people have been spending a lot more of their time online (Koeze & Popper, 2020). Particularly among young adults, much of this online time is taken up by social media with 60% of those aged 18-34 reporting higher use of social media platforms during the pandemic than before it (Samet, 2020). The increasing use of social media is coming at an especially high cost to this younger demographic because of the prevalence of disinformation on these platforms and the effects that misinformation has on those who consume it. At a time of stress and uncertainty related to the physical dangers posed by COVID-19, a new mental health crisis is emerging as a consequence of digital disinformation.

Studies performed around the world have made clear the disproportionate toll the pandemic has taken on young adults’ mental health, with researchers blaming social media as a contributing factor. A UK study on mental health during the lockdown found young adults to report higher rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia than any other age group, with almost two thirds indicating depressive symptoms and almost 60% experiencing anxiety (Pieh et al., 2020). These findings were consistent with other research around the world, including a study from Jordan noting that the prevalence of severe depression was almost 3 times greater and severe anxiety was experienced at a nearly 2.5 times greater rate among college students than the general public (Naser et al., 2020) . Research into how the pandemic is affecting the mental health of populations is uncovering a worrisome uptick in complications among young adults, with additional studies pointing to potential causes that can be addressed.

In addition to the fear and stress associated with facing a deadly virus, economic turmoil, and social disruption, some researchers are postulating that misinformation and its spread on social media is contributing to this widespread mental health deterioration (Torales et al., 2020). Noting that in past crises, conflicting information and inaccurate data being widely distributed exacerbated mental health problems, these researchers argue the pandemic is creating an information ecosystem ripe for psychological distress. Researchers in the Middle East found direct evidence supporting this hypothesis, with the results of their survey indicating social media usage to be correlated with troubling mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ahmad & Murad, 2020). This Iraqi study noted misinformation was consistently reported as the primary contributor to a sense of “fear and panic,” with younger demographics consuming misinformation at higher rates due to increased social media usage, and subsequently suffering more psychologically as a result (Ahmad & Murad, 2020). “Infodemic” is the term the World Health Organization (WHO) is using to define this global issue of misinformation and its negative consequences, and researchers argue a massive, collective effort is needed to combat it (Torales et al., 2020; Ahmad & Murad, 2020). By putting pressure on social media companies to improve their fact-checking policies and investing in an educational system that teaches young adults how to discern fact from fiction, inroads can be made on this infodemic and help prevent future ones from arising.

Social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are currently fighting misinformation through haphazard, voluntary measures that don’t appear to be working (Frankel et al., 2020) Although tech companies have made pledges to tackle the issue and work with the WHO on addressing the infodemic, misinformation is still a major problem, particularly with regard to less-prominent accounts on Twitter, the comment section on YouTube, and private groups on Facebook (Frankel et al., 2020; Al-Arsani, 2020). Additionally, the credibility of these fact checking mechanisms took a major blow in the past month when election misinformation became the subject of a partisan debate. The congressional hearings and outrage that resulted demonstrated a clear lack of consensus of how misinformation should be regulated on social media, with opinions on how to properly regulate splitting down political lines (Overly, 2020; Klepper, 2020). The inability of tech companies to adequately confront the issues plaguing their platforms, and the mounting frustrations this inability is eliciting from politicians, argues the country is in dire need of a new framework for systematically approaching the infodemic.

Although a transparent, universal framework on how to fact-check social media posts will take time to develop, the current state of affairs offers a few clues on how to start. First, studying the issue of misinformation, how it spreads, and how it can be effectively slowed is a worthwhile endeavor to inform policy. Such an effort should be prioritized by policy-makers, academic institutions, and the tech companies themselves through the ample provision of grants and incentives. Secondly, the insights revealed by current research into fact-checking, namely that it can be more effective if the questionable claim is debunked with evidence from the same side of the political spectrum (Drutman, 2020), should be utilized in the on-going attempts to curb misinformation. Lastly, political tension between tech giants and politicians needs to evolve into lasting dialogue to construct policy that is non-partisan and balances the public’s right to free speech, while also being able to access a digital environment that isn’t inundated with “fake news.” The current pattern of confrontational, reactionary, and politicized hearings that don’t translate into concrete legislation (Klepper, 2020) are a disservice to what the public deserves from both its representatives and the platforms it places its trust in.

As much as the infodemic and the mental health fallout it has caused are systemic problems that require broad-based action, investments can and should be made in giving young adults the tools needed to mitigate our current crises. Although telling truth from fiction sounds easy enough of a skill, researchers note that fact-checking is often a multi-step process that requires strategies not always immediately intuitive (Spector, 2020). The difficulty of this challenge has been confirmed in a study involving over 3,000 high school students in which students struggled to determine the validity of misinformation online through example posts on a variety of topics (Spector, 2020). The current infodemic, increasing prominence of using social platforms to rely on news (Mitchell et al., 2020), and the struggles young adults face with identifying misinformation argue that fact-checking is a fundamental skill and should be a requirement in all curriculums.

The current pandemic has shined a light on the issue of misinformation and the detrimental mental health effects it is causing among young adults who utilize social media as a news source more than any other demographic (Mitchell et al., 2020). By putting pressure on tech giants and policy makers, meaningful reform can be achieved on these platforms, and subsequently on addressing the spread of disinformation. In the meantime, younger generations currently grappling with the infodemic needs to be equipped with tools and strategies to fight misinformation, and educational systems should take up what ultimately might be one of the most important and consequential challenges society faces.

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