Americans on Social Media Rapidly Shift to Focusing on Coronavirus
No longer an abstraction taking place oceans away, America has finally come to grips with the reality of the coronavirus.
Conversation about the coronavirus spread unevenly across social media in urban areas and the rural, Midwestern regions of the country from February to March, suggesting that awareness of and concern about the coronavirus also may have grown unevenly.
Ipsos Biosurveillance Atlas tracking shows that conversations about the coronavirus spiked on Facebook and Twitter in urban areas between February 1-15 and March 1-13. In Midwestern and rural parts of the country, there was little to no conversation about the virus online.
That picture changed in early March as more cases were reported across the United States. Digital discussions about the coronavirus began to increase in counties that previously had been quiet about the coronavirus – particularly in rural, Midwestern regions – in the period between March 1-6 and March 9-13.
“We didn’t see the same dramatic spike in dialogue about the coronavirus in urban areas in March that we did from February to March, likely because people in those areas are living in a media saturated space, and as such, are already highly aware of the coronavirus,” said Thomas Sutton, Vice President of Public Affairs. “In the Midwest, attention to the coronavirus may have been driven by recent messaging from public officials.”
According to internal Ipsos Biosurveillance Atlas data, the volume of digital conversation hit a peak on March 9th with 140,000 Facebook and Twitter mentions. That number tapered off to 80,000 on March 11 and rose again to 110,000 on March 12 after President Trump’s address to the nation on Wednesday night.
Much of the dialogue on social media is being driven by regular people, rather than by news outlets and other digital influencers, suggesting that the coronavirus and its attendant threats to public health and the economy are of great concern to many Americans. A recent ABC/Ipsos survey found that 66% of Americans are concerned that someone they know will be infected by the coronavirus.
