Heavy social media use by politicians during the election campaign could prove to be counterproductive in the long run, University communication department head Ġorġ Mallia has warned.

While spreading messages with the click of a button could be alluring, Dr Mallia warned that the way parties have taken to social media was “bordering on overkill”.

“There is an enormous clutter of live feeds at any one time on Facebook and this might be leading to an actual overkill, making some, potentially even large numbers, of users to swear off using social media for the duration of the campaign,” Dr Mallia said.

Party leaders and candidates are uploading short daily videos to give a rundown of the day while others use the platform to give a breakdown of proposals they were making.

The communications lecturer however fears that while diehards would continue to tune in, social media platforms are designed in such a way that users would more likely see messages that they favour.

“This in turn creates a bubble of satisfaction that is totally false and the candidate using social media is likely to be preaching to the converted,” Dr Mallia said.