PsyPost: “Trump’s tweets linked to changes in Americans’ beliefs about the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic”

New research from the University of California at Irvine suggests that Donald Trump’s tweets influenced the spread of misinformation about COVID-19. The study, which appears in JAMA Network Open, examined social media data from Twitter to capture changes in the public’s coronavirus-related attitudes.

“I’m interested in creative ways to help people and save lives. A broad major problem stopping public health from saving lives is that it takes a long time to learn who needs help,” said study author Sean D. Young, an associate professor and executive director of the UC Institute for Prediction Technology. “Monitoring near-real time data sources like social media, especially among influencers, can help solve that problem.”

Read the full story at PsyPost.