I confess — after the Sept. 11 attacks, I did buy a roll of toilet paper.

It sits in a box of perverse reporting keepsakes, which includes a Guantanamo Bay snow globe, an AK-47 shell casing from Yemen, a trophy from the Pakistani army, and a little pin from Bangui. Each square of the toilet paper is printed with an image of Osama bin Laden’s face and the words, “Wipe out terrorism.” I bought it at one of the tourist shops in New York’s Times Square just a day or two after the attack, marvelling at how quickly it had stocked the shelves.

If there had been Instagram in 2001, I may have posted a picture, which would have probably elicited a crying face emoji or flexed biceps, a couple of hashtags, and criticism or praise for my choice of post.

I’m so happy there wasn’t social media back then.

To compare 9/11 to today’s crisis is, of course, an imperfect comparison. No one thought Al Qaeda was at your gym, or could kill you on the streetcar. One was sudden, the other gradual, like the difference between a tsunami and a famine.

Yet both were seismic security events that have forced us to curb our behaviour, deeply impacted the economy, and enveloped the entire world. And both have thrown us into a climate of fear, which can bring out the best in a society, or the worst.

Social media is helping bring out the worst.

Before I extol the virtues of supporting journalism, and encouraging everyone to use social media for good (spoiler alert: that’s where this column is going), I will reassure you that I’m not saying this from my journalism high horse.

I’m no longer in a newsroom, or on a daily beat, which always gave me the benefit of doing something during a crisis. So I have a new appreciation for the helplessness you can feel as a consumer of news, and I too have been sucked into the social media vortex, checking Twitter more often than washing my hands, watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger PSA video urging us to stay home, which frankly is a lot easier for him to do with a donkey and a horse to entertain him.

(By the way, that’s not some weird euphemism, Schwarzenegger actually owns a miniature horse named Whiskey and a donkey he calls Lulu, and he feeds them vegan “yummies” while pleading for social distancing. Last I checked, nine million people had watched.)

And there are some inspirational posts being shared and people helping others cope. Gyms are offering online workouts, mental health professionals are providing counselling and hey, Josh Gad, a.k.a. Olaf from Disney’s “Frozen,” is reading bedtime stories every night. These are strange times, and suddenly an Olaf quote seems apt: “We call this making the best out of what we can control.”

But what has been so distressing to witness online is how quickly disinformation is being spread, and the speed with which so many have anointed themselves COVID-19 experts, wagging their well-sanitized fingers at others. This social shaming phenomenon is going beyond the generic trolls and partisan hacks we’ve all become accustomed to, and is starting to divide friends and relatives, increasing everyone’s anxiety.

More than a month ago, the director general of the World Health Organization warned of this phenomenon at a conference of security and foreign policy experts in Munich.

“We have a choice. Can we come together to face a common and dangerous enemy?” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked. “Or will we allow fear, suspicion and irrationality to distract and divide us?”

Tedros argued that the world was not only facing a pandemic but also an “infodemic,” and that fake news could spread as quickly, and be as deadly, as the virus itself. That seems to be happening, not only fuelled by a panicked public, but also by some world leaders — most notorious among them being U.S. President Donald Trump, who contradicted America’s top infectious disease specialist this week by insisting the virus was under “tremendous control.”

I can’t fathom how anxiety would have spiked after 9/11 if we’d all been carrying smart phones. As it was, xenophobia was rife and paranoia rampant in the immediate aftermath. In the months and years that followed, tragic, unforgivable disinformation was spread through reputable news sources, which helped lead to war. But I fear it could have been worse. At the very least, I believe people’s individual mental health would have suffered even more if we were looking at our phones more than at each other.

We are in many ways, a more informed and skeptical world now, with a greater global understanding. But to listen for that information, we have to stop shouting.

I’m certainly not the first in recent days to encourage people to take a break. Remove apps from your phone if they are stressing you out. Think before you respond. Seek out — and listen to — the real experts. Support legitimate journalism.

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If we embrace a little social media distancing, this doesn’t mean we’ll be uninformed. My phone has never vibrated more with daily news updates from media outlets. News is breaking fast and furious, and reputable outlets are cranking it out as quickly as they can. You’ll get the alerts. Or you can find them when you need to. We can use our phones or computers to check in on people, to feel connected, not isolated.

As the WHO director general argued, this is a “time for facts, not fear. This is a time for rationality, not rumours. This is a time for solidarity, not stigma.”

That was a month ago. The need is even more urgent now.