As a social experiment this week, I decided to do some investigative journalism on my own. With the United States’ recent spike in COVID-19 cases, I wanted to ask people a few questions about how they were personally dealing with the new risk.
In Texas, one of the recent highest growing states in cases (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/26/coronavirus-live-updates-us/), one would expect to see an ample amount of people wearing masks when going in public. This, however, is not the case.
I put a few questions on my Instagram story to get a steady flow of data from my followers, including, “Do you wear a mask in public?” and “Other than health reasons, why do you choose not to wear a mask?” Of course, I expected a biased amount of data, as people are much more willing and proud to admit that they wear a mask than if they do not wear a mask.
I ended up getting 317 views on the story post, yet only 77 people said “yes” to the first question. This revealed to me that 77 people were actively choosing to wear a mask. The other 240 people that saw the story but didn’t respond were likely because of two reasons: 1) they chose not to vote out of uninterest, or 2) they do not wear a mask.
I was extremely interested to see the results of the second question, yet I found that I only received answers such as “there is no reason not to wear a mask” and that “health is a blessing.” It appeared that I didn’t receive any true reasons why people who choose not to wear a mask in public choose to do as they do.
This study, while at first glance may seem to lack any results, actually revealed much more than I thought it would. It shows that people who wear a mask in public do so because they genuinely care about those around them, and the world. And, for those who don’t wear a mask?
They lack a true justification for their actions.
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