"Before the outbreak of COVID-19 from the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019, many people across the globe, Nigerians inclusive already relied on social media to gather and disseminate information and news. Since the outbreak of the virus on February 27th, 2020 in Nigeria, people have depended on social media to obtain information about the virus. No doubt, social media has a lot of potentials to keep the users abreast of many areas such as academic, economic, socials, health, religions etc. Nowadays, social media are often seen as fast and effective platforms for searching, sharing, and distributing health information among the general population. During sudden outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the public needs access to timely, objective and reliable information about the disease symptoms, preventions and cure. Regrettably, these same platforms are also being deployed to spread fake news, rumours about the virus and cause fear, panic and death. Certainly, the scenario poses danger to both individual and public health in Nigeria. Based on this, the present article employed conceptual analysis with a receptor-oriented method to examine the extent to which the potential of social media can be beneficial or injurious to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was discovered among others that; social media causes more harm to people’s health during the pandemic. Therefore, social media literacy and media content censorship among others were suggested as the way forward in promoting public health during a pandemic situation." (Abstract)