Social Media and The Discourse of Public Health
Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash
The term medium (the singular form of media) is defined as “one of the means or channels of general communication, information, or entertainment in society, as newspapers, radio, or television.” Social media refers to online platforms and apps that allow users to create and share content, interact with others, and build communities.
Social media is an important part of today's world. It helps people stay connected, and share ideas, thoughts, and opinions with others in a safe and secure environment. It can also be used to promote businesses, organizations, and causes, as well as to stay informed about current events and trends. Media influence is the actual force exerted by a media message, resulting in either a change or reinforcement in audience or individual beliefs. Whether a media message affects any of its audience members is contingent on many factors, including audience demographics and psychological characteristics.
Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. From connecting with friends and family to promoting businesses, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer immense value. With billions of users across platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, social media has become a dominant channel for communication, expression, marketing, and entertainment. However, excessive use of social media can also have negative effects.[1]
The Pros And Cons Of Social Media[2]
The Pros
· Promotes Skill Development: Social media platforms enable users to learn new skills by accessing instructional videos, posts, and live streams on niche interests, which empowers self-learning.
· Supplement to Education: Students and academics actively use social networking platforms for knowledge sharing, accessing the latest research and study resources as well as promoting scientific initiatives.
· Staying Connected: With friends, family members, acquaintances, colleagues, and even celebrities seamlessly.
· Access to News and Current Events: Social media platforms have emerged as real-time news sources providing instant updates on happenings from around the world.
· Platform for Personal Branding: Allow professionals to promote their skills, services, accomplishments, and products to a wider audience and build their brand.
· Business and Marketing Opportunity: Companies utilize for market research on consumer preferences and feedback. It provides a venue for increasing brand awareness through promotions and engagement with customers.
· Convenience and Ease of Access: Messaging apps like WhatsApp offer a convenient way for people to communicate with each other via chats, and video/voice calls.
· Fosters Innovation and Learning: Shared by experts and thought-leaders on social media channels sparks creativity among users.
· Provides Entertainment: Channels like TikTok have gained popularity solely for entertainment via short videos & clips.
· Platform for Societal Change: By enabling discussions and coordination on a mass scale, social media has driven positive movements for societal change.
The Cons
· Distraction and Loss of Productivity: Obsessive social platform usage during work or study hours leads to reduced productivity.
· Spread of Misinformation: Circulation of fake news, propaganda, and unverified data through viral posts and messages can misguide users.
· Promotes Obsessive Self-Presentation: Focusing excessively on presenting perfect selfies, and posts for likes and comments triggers unrealistic comparisons.
· Helps Spread Scams and Frauds: Fake news, phishing attacks, and Ponzi schemes can easily spread through social channels causing financial fraud.
· Compromise Privacy and Data Vulnerabilities: Oversharing personal information and data thefts compromises user privacy and exposes them to fraud.
· Promotes Superficial Connections: The use of social networks to make fake connections rather than meaningful relationships can be detrimental.
. Social Media Addiction: Excessive checking of notifications and mindless scrolling create addictive behavior that impedes real-life relationships and well-being.
· Enables Bullying and Harassment: Trolling, public humiliation, and harassment of individuals including celebrities is made easy by anonymous accounts.
· Promotes Social Isolation: spending excessive time which can reduce in-person interactions, communication, and sociability.
· Causes Depression and Anxiety: excessive social media usage is associated with low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, especially among teenagers.
The Current State Of Social Media[3]
According to the Datareportal January 2024 global overview, social media growth has continued to increase (Datareportal is an online reference library offering hundreds of free reports packed with data, insights, and trends to help one make more informed decisions.):
· More than half of the world now uses social media (62.3%)
· 5.04 billion people around the world now use social media, and 266 million new users have come online within the last year.
· The average daily time spent using social media is 2h 23m.
Impact of Social Media on Public Health [4]
Despite the ubiquity of health-related communications via social media, no consensus has emerged on whether this medium, on balance, jeopardizes or promotes public health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been described as the source of a toxic “infodemic” or a valuable tool for public health. There is a direct link between public health and social media both in the short- and long terms. Another issue facing social media in public health is the fact that misinformation is easily spread due to personal bias and lack of desire to self-educate. Public health social media campaigns presented in a variety of mediums and styles can help reach larger audiences and appeal to different demographics to spread the message effectively. Using a clear and authoritative tone with good explanations behind the reasoning helps make social media public health campaigns more effective.
False Information-Social Media: A Hindrance In The Public Health
Information is the “factual data” that entails the knowledge flowing through society and guides individuals in their choices, actions, efforts, or lack thereof. Albeit advantageous when valid, there are serious consequences of false, biased, misleading, and erroneous information. Notably, it is imperative to consider that rumors, myths, and opinions also serve as information. As one investigates the global COVID-19 pandemic, one can perceive the detrimental effects that its contrary misinformation created. Unfortunately, misinformation has a further burden on controlling the situation. It could lead to rumors, stigma, discrimination, and false theories and shape beliefs and attitudes, ultimately creating confusion that curtails the advancement of individual health and public health during crises. Some examples include the association of face masks and CO2 toxicity, conspiracy theories related to Bill Gates, and discussions related to the various non-approved drugs for COVID-19. From its inception to the present, misinformation has governed an individual’s choice to increase handwashing, adhere to and maintain social distancing, comply with mask mandates, and initiate vaccination. Several myths have also become common hearsay such as vaccines negatively affecting fertility in women and vaccines altering the genetic makeup of recipients. As the generation of information is theoretically free, the scope of misinformation is numerous and limitless. Consequently, medical and governing entities must assert that accurate, evidence-based information dominates science and public health to control and limit the dissemination of falsities or misinformation.[5]
Vigilance for The Social Media Role On Health
People must protect themselves by being vigilant in social media use. There are some important things to remember when using social media. First, it is best to share as little personal identifying information out there about oneself, like posting full name, address, where one goes to school/college/university, etc. Never share personal information in messages, and never share photos with any nudity as this becomes a legal issue that can also come back to haunt.
A big part of social media is the time one invests in using it. One must know how much time he/she spends each day on social media, each hour. If one is managing life well, he/she needs to eat well, exercise, do self-care, take time to meditate, spend face-to-face time with friends and family, as well as focus enough time on school and homework or other work every day. If one is doing all of this and still managing social media time well, then that is ideal.[6]
Another big question to be vigilant about one’s social media use is to ask oneself what exactly he/she is seeing and reading on social media each day. There is so much great content out there which may be questionable. Being vigilant about one’s social media use involves all aspects of social media: safety, responsibility, time management, and being aware of what they are putting into their head. It is vital to use social media platforms in moderation by following time limits, disabling notifications, assessing the credibility of information, and focusing more on real-life relationships. Ultimately, the advantages of social media outweigh the disadvantages when used responsibly. Users must establish self-discipline by being mindful of time spent, safeguarding personal data, and verifying information sourced from social platforms. [7]
Historically, healthcare misinformation has largely shaped public health behavior, but the impact of this association became extensive during the COVID-19 pandemic. It brought about a surge of several rumors, hoaxes, and false theories regarding the origin of the virus, its spread, and treatment options which even led to fatalities in some cases. As a result, this has shed new light on the importance of having credible sources of healthcare information and continuous monitoring of social media platforms to determine whether accurate information is being relayed to the public.
References
Information Definition & Meaning. Dictionary.com, 2021. Available from:https: //www .dictionary.com/browse/information.
Laurel, I. (2016). Pros & cons of social media. Create space Independent Publishing Platform.
Statista: Most famous social network sites worldwide as of July 2023, ranked by number of active users (in millions). 2023. https://www. statista. com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/. Accessed August 05, 2023.
Islam MS, Sarkar T, Khan SH, et al. (2020) COVID-19-related infodemic and its impact on public health: a global social media analysis. Am J Trop Med Hyg 103: 1621–1629. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.20-0812
Scanfeld D, Scanfeld V, Larson EL. Dissemination of health information through social networks: twitter and antibiotics. Am J Infect Control. 2010;38(3):182–188.
Pew Research Center. The Internet and health. 2013. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/12/the-internet-and-health/. Accessed July 21, 2021.
O’Reilly, M., Dogra, N., Whiteman, N., Hughes, J., Eruyar, S., & Reilly, P. (2018). Is social media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspectives of adolescents. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 23(4), 601–613. https://doi.org /10.1177 /1359104518775154
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