Abstract:
The present study aims to explain how people in Bangladesh, especially students and professionals, have used social media and how it has influenced them during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 342 respondents participated from the seven divisions of Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online questionnaire was surveyed through purposive sampling techniques and analyzed using SPSS 23.0. A 25-item tool for collecting responses on different aspects of social media usage during the pandemic times was administered to observe the role of social media usage, including demographic factors, a trend of usage, intentions of usage, and its influences were recorded. The key findings showed that during the COVD-19 pandemic crisis there was a flow of social media use such as 82 percent of respondents used only Facebook, another 60 percent of respondents used various social media to get updated coronavirus news across the country. On the other hand, almost 58 percent of respondents received fake news through social media during the COVID-19 era. The study results confirmed that there was a significant impact of using social media that conscious the citizens positively about the COVID-19 pandemic during the lockdown period. Finally, the study can be confirmed that the effective usage of the internet and social media has been played a significant role to keep peoples protected and engaged in a positive mindset during the lockdown imposed by the government of Bangladesh. This study also offers new directions for future studies of using social media effectively.
