Information Diet in Covid-19 Crisis; a Commentary

Abstract

Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 2020; 8(1): e30 LETTER TO EDITOR Information Diet in Covid-19 Crisis; a Commentary Hasan Ashrafi-rizi1∗, Zahra Kazempour2 1. Associate Professor, Medical Library and Information Science Department, Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. 2. Library and Information Science Department, Faculty of Media, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran. Received: March 2020; Accepted: March 2020; Published online: 22 March 2020 Cite this article as: Information Diet in Covid-19 Crisis; a Commentary. Arch Acad Emerg Med. 2020; 8(1): e30. 1. Introduction By the beginning of COVID-19 crisis in China in late 2019, and its spread throughout the world in early 2020, countries around the world experienced numerous problems (1).The outbreak of the new Coronavirus started in Wuhan, and this third epidemic of Coronaviruses expanded to the middle east promptly. . Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed its concerns about the Coronavirus crisis (2). This crisis caused production and publication of large amounts of valid and invalid information, eventually leading to in- formation obesity phenomenon. Information obesity can have many negative consequences on the general popula- tion, causing major problems for governments, especially if the amount of invalid information is too large. It is worth to mention that however almost impossible, controlling and monitoring media is a massive challenge for different govern- ments. Hence, individuals should protect themselves against unreliable information, and pursue an authentic "informa- tion diet". In the present study, authors have explained and interpreted the concept of the information diet, proposed by Johnson, based on scientific evidence, observation of media news and the social media environment, to help maintain the use of valid information in facing the new Coronavirus crisis