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International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society

WIS 2022: Well-Being in the Information Society: When the Mind Breaks pp 94–111Cite as

Understanding University Students’ Health Information Seeking Behaviours on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Developing Country Perspective

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1626))

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 pandemic is considered the worst global health crisis in the 21st century that caused unprecedented disruption to many sectors around the world (e.g. education, business, and tourism). Misinformation on social media is one of the major issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, which must be carefully considered. To address this issue, people’s health information-seeking behaviours play an important role to access accurate and reliable information on social media. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire-based study in Myanmar, which is one of the developing countries according to the United Nations to understand university students’ health information-seeking behaviours on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that social media plays a vital role to spread reliable and accurate information during the pandemic. The role of governments and authorities is also important to effectively use social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) to reach out to the public so that they can spread timely and accurate information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, users need to assess and verify the credibility of information related to pandemics on social media when they seek health-related information. This study suggests opportunities for further research in health information seeking on social media.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ISE, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Aung Pyae

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi, Turku, Finland

    Shahrokh Nikou

Authors
  1. Aung Pyae
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  2. Shahrokh Nikou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aung Pyae .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Hongxiu Li

  2. Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Maehed Ghorbanian Zolbin

  3. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Robert Krimmer

  4. Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

    Jukka Kärkkäinen

  5. Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Chenglong Li

  6. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Reima Suomi

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Pyae, A., Nikou, S. (2022). Understanding University Students’ Health Information Seeking Behaviours on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Developing Country Perspective. In: Li, H., Ghorbanian Zolbin, M., Krimmer, R., Kärkkäinen, J., Li, C., Suomi, R. (eds) Well-Being in the Information Society: When the Mind Breaks. WIS 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1626. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14832-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14832-3_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-14831-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-14832-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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