Social Media and Social Distancing: Moving towards a ‘New Normal’

Abstract

In this age of easy accessibility of data and information via social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter etc. the major concerns are the ‘facts’ that are being circulated. However, this very accessibility has helped in generating mass awareness among the Indian population in times of the pandemic Coronavirus/ COVID 19 episode, which has emerged as a global threat.This article is a humble contribution to the understanding of how social media empowered people with knowledge about the virus. The thrust of this work lies in understanding common life and how people were slowly being acclimatized to a ‘new normal’ just before lockdown was announced in India owing to the COVID 19 crisis. The research work is based on participant observation and case study method, wherein, I have taken into account the lives of some of the domestic help and daily wage workers who have not completed their formal education, yet actively follow WhatsApp or other such social media platforms. This work stems from their actions, reactions and activities that I had observed before the onset of the lockdown. I have drawn herein how the social media as a virtual contact had impacted and brought about social, cultural and behavioural changes in their everyday lives during the COVID 19 pandemic, social change which otherwise is based primarily on one to one contact.