structural:summarization, structural:scholar_edition, information:filtering, structural:expansion
Reasons for use by adults

While adults were using social media before the COVID-19 pandemic, more started using it to stay socially connected and to get pandemic updates.

"Social media have become popularly use to seek for medical information and have fascinated the general public to collect information regarding corona virus pandemics in various perspectives. During these days, people are forced to stay at home and the social media have connected and supported awareness and pandemic updates."

Healthcare workers and systems became more aware of social media as a place people were getting health information:

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media use has accelerated to the point of becoming a ubiquitous part of modern healthcare systems."

This also led to the spread of disinformation. On December 11, 2020, the CDC put out a "Call to Action: Managing the Infodemic ". Some healthcare organizations used hashtags as interventions and published articles on their Twitter data:

"Promotion of the joint usage of #PedsICU and #COVID19 throughout the international pediatric critical care community in tweets relevant to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and pediatric critical care."

However others in the medical community were concerned about social media addiction, as it became an increasingly important context and therefore "source of social validation and reinforcement" and were unsure whether increased social media use was harmful.