Abstract:
The COVID19 pandemic, a public health emergency which broke out globally in December 2019 and is still going on, has put us all into an unprecedented situation where there are strict limitations on physical social interaction and everyone is confined to their homes. This has increased importance of online support from social media in our lives. With social media becoming a major source of help, consolation, medical information, and a platform for sharing our own experiences. This study is a deep dive into the various roles that social media has played during this pandemic. We try to answer social questions such as what is being talked about in the online COVID communities, how testing positive changes people's online behaviour, what are the most prominent symptoms during COVID and what is the effect of giving and receiving support from the community. Finally, we classify the dataset in terms of COVID phases, support and user behavior and analyse how support affects people in various phases. Our results lead to a better understanding of how users are getting affected in this unusual situation and study how online social communities can support each other in such trying times.
