Write a reflection article choosing ONE perspective based on either human-values, moral impact or literary representation of Covid-19 in digital platforms such as social media, news media, web-series or blogs. You may like to use perspectives that you have observed during the lockdown on digital platforms.
COVID 19 has had a huge impact on all of us, both physically and mentally. A large part of the COVID pandemic has been about information, given that a global event of such scale has happened in the internet era, it is no surprise that a person would receive a huge amount of resources, posts, messages regarding the following, which any person would surprisingly get, through a number of channels – TV, your messages from friends, your social media, companies who are now advertising their services or products with respect to the changes in the pandemic! COVID has made an impact in a lot of areas – business, the way we study, the way we interact with people, however an hidden yet not so subtle impact has been made on us, as humans and on our values.
One subcategory about this information, is the news, something we constantly receive. I have always been critical of journalism and really appreciate good efforts in doing so, however the andemic has exposed how humans need to deal with it . I believe there are two aspects to journalism 1. Getting the information across, which is as important as 2. The manner in which you present it. Presenting includes a number of subcategories depending on what medium this news takes. Talking about the first point which is “the information” has always happened to be an issue – the issue of fake news, which has been powered mainly by the mass usage of social media. There have been multiple instances of fake news causing a havoc in the society – the 2016[1] presidential election of USA, 2018 lynching cases of India[2] and many more, and the COVID situation is no different. The number of whatsapp forwards a person receives about how COVID is related to weirdest of the things to scientific facts about the virus which are slightly inaccurate. Surprisingly as I learnt or came to understand, fake news about COVID was different in one major way – the fact that people were in a state of panic and that the reason such news was shared in such large numbers was because a large number of us were in the state of panic about it, about something we had no information or clue about, and thus any information would be okay with us at the moment. This is contrary to other cases of fake news spread which try to stir up other emotions such anger or sadness or for preaching propaganda. The fact that we understood that no information about this could be left unturned seemed to fuel this. COVID also brought about a surprising new form of such fake news which was about “happy news”, news which was meant to help us heal from the other disturbing news we hear all day. One such example I recall was how global pollution levels were decreasing and how organisms were thriving around the globe, although in a way this was true, most of these weren’t factual or were highly based on the location. It is not surprising as to why we would like to hear something good after being subjected to a continuous amount of negative news. The pandemic had unknowingly or knowingly made a large amount of the population empathetic towards each other’s feelings of stress and being lost and were thus contributing to it. Although a somewhat irresponsible of way of doing so, this was one major change I felt
This brings me to the second point – how news is presented, which applies to both text and voice. Being a computer science student, statistically I can show how two sentences with the same intent can have different emotion levels if framed differently. This can be similarly done in case of voice and also applies to real life. Although news channels are mainly guided by their business policies, in the pandemic they were suddenly and unknowingly in power of controlling the emotions of the public. I personally never liked Indian news channels simply because I don’t like the way they present information, not to mention the large number of people who were panic struck by stuff they were seeing, however other social platforms took it amongst themselves to bring about showing positive human values, of courage and appreciation. One example was Reddit’s subreddit of UpliftingNews ( https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/ ), dedicated to news which was positive in nature, and it wasn’t only about it existing, but the constant ads and reminders i got from Reddit, letting me know that I should take a look, because it would make me feel good. Another example was John Krasinski’s youtube channel – Some Good News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXdKrtmexWU). Being known for his character Jim Halpert in The Office, an incredibly famous show, John used the show’s popularity to gather people to this channel, where he compiled happy moments people sent to him during the pandemic along with interviews he had from the cast of the show. Shows and initiatives like these meant that it was possible to channel positive news while a major global event was going on.
Our increase in empathy and appreciation was also because of the secondary problem, information was causing – mental health issues, something I have noticed on social media platforms, with a large number of people posting more positive things, about themselves and how grateful they are. Simple things such as asking how we are every time we chat or happen to video call or an email have become the new norms, because of our grown levels of empathy for one another.
COVID although having occurred during the internet age, is quite different from other diseases in a fascinating way. Given the way the virus has engineered itself, with symptoms appearing with
a gap of 2 weeks, while it being quite easy to catch, you being cautious is not a total guarantee that you won’t be infected, it in fact depends on the people you are with. In other words, the
chances of you catching the disease depends on whether people around you are taking measures. Something which has been picked up very seriously by digital platforms, seeing a number of times everyday about the dos and don’ts. Initiatives taken by companies through advertisements irrespective of whether they identify themselves as important or relevant to COVID have been done (you will not believe the places I have seen such notices). I overall think that such initiatives has brought upon a huge amount of responsibility as citizens to keep the health of others in mind whenever we are interacting with them, for any reason whatsoever.
Considering the general social media, what I felt different or probably because I never used it, was how linkedin posts changed over the time of COVID. LinkedIn being a place for jobs and resources rarely sees motivational content, although if you see it, it’s the cliche stuff. However, over the entire pandemic with recession hitting multiple parts of the globe, saw a lot of people
using their time for things they wouldn’t usually do and in the process motivating others. The platform somehow got everyone to talk about their insecurities during a tough time and to try out things. Activities where people described themselves discovering their passion in things they never got the chance to learn because they couldn’t find time previously, where people talked about ideas which could change how we have been working and various others sectors as well, showed how at this weird time i could see a lot of people feeling the need to stimulate themselves and in the process doing things they have always wanted to do. I could see a number of my friends, trying blogging, vlogging too with videos on youtube, me having dug myself into music and singing and it makes you wonder how COVID has been the longest in a while since people have got the chance to actually explore.
Jobs have been tough though, because of the incoming recession, a number of companies laid off their employees, some which included my friends and classmates who were studying in other colleges, having their offers rescinded, which seemed to me companies were restructuring their organizations because of the pandemic. Although it would be unfair to comment about companies, what I felt good about was how people on the platform came together to help them. Personally i haven’t used linkedin for job search yet, however the following does give me hope about finding a job if i ever want to know on the platform.
I remember talking to my best friend and telling her how COVID felt awfully like the movie 2012 where people who got tickets to the arc were the privileged ones and it felt like that after hearing
stories about how indian hospitals were low on beds and ventilators and it felt obvious that for people who had no contacts with people in a hospital or in the government, it would be a struggle, which really got me thinking about the ethical side and fairness of the whole thing and whether problems such as the following would ever have a solution to them. Of course fairness is almost entirely a philosophical concept but it seemed like an impossible thing to figure out unless supplies were good enough in number. However at the same time I did feel a whole sense of appreciation and respect for people working on the frontline during this pandemic, with stories about how stressful their lives are and what they are currently being faced with and overall it has actually got me take a sense of appreciation for the little things people have done for me although it was just their “duty”
Overall, although the final examples aren’t an exhaustive list of all the things I have felt during the pandemic on digital media platforms, the pandemic has made lasting changes to how humans have dealt with almost everything in life. Although the following depend entirely on perspective, I am confident through the following example which I have shared that we can constantly keep improving ourselves and can make ourselves better.
References
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07761-2
[2] As mob lynchings fueled by WhatsApp messages sweep India, authorities struggle to combat fake news
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXdKrtmexWU
