Persuasive Essay On Health And Social Media

Social media (digital technology) platforms are defined as any form of digital communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). Over the last several years, the use of social media platforms such as blogs, text messaging, games, and Twitter, have had significant growth. Social media tools have become an effective way to expand reach, foster engagement and increase access to credible, evidence-based health information.

You are so right. While social media is a good way of marketing a policy, the credibility of the source could be a problem. So as health care providers we should be aware of which sites are considered credible and which ones are not. Take for example a website, it is deemed credible if it is from a governmental or educational origin. The World Wide Web contains many different sites and finding a credible one can be challenging, not to mention time consuming. According to Roberts (2010), there are 5 crucial things that needs to be addressed when evaluating a website: credibility, currency, content, construction, and clarity. When verifying the credibility of a website one has to make sure it contains the author/authors name, publication date

First and foremost, social media can be great health surveillance to the public since it often complement the information gathered by the professionals that provides a better understanding on healthcare and diseases. As what Gary W. Lawson mentions in his article, "social media plays a vital role during a health crisis because people are in search of the cure, the signs of symptoms, management, and all other information that they can learn to be better informed about a specific disease”. This set of online communication helps in not only encouraging healthy lifestyle, but it also function as a medium in providing information in the risk of a particular disease and steps of prevention. Data page from the official organization websites or news

64% of the 113 million internet users in America have searched for medical information. (as cited in Rankin et al., 2005). Many health professionals concern that the internet resources can be potentially negative by spreading misinformation (as cited in Rankin et al.,

Information technologies use of the internet by health care professional and patients alike will and has ushered in a profound change as dynamic as any that has taken place before in the history of healthcare (BAU, 2011). The potential of the internet and its influence on the success of patient centered care in the health care industry has been greatly underestimated until the 21st century. But that is fast changing no other medium of communication has achieved such great acceptance and as pervasively than the internet and information technology (Waldo, 2000). As an information tool the access to a wealth of medical conditions, diagnosis, and treatments on demand for patients 24/7 is virtually unlimited. Not only that but comparisons on

For workplaces social media can be productive and unproductive. Social media in medical workplaces can be productive by advertising or having some communication skills that will save some time. Social media in medical workplaces can be unproductive by doctors pausing at work, or during surgery, to tweet what they are doing causing more risks or the workers getting temptations to go onto personal accounts on the social networks and getting distracted with their friends for a several minutes.

The use of social media for purposes of communication in healthcare contexts has been growing and increasingly becoming acceptable. Specifically, health organizations, health professionals, patients, and members of the general public have been using social media for various purposes within a healthcare setting. Based on this understanding and lack of knowledge of the impact of social media on interpersonal communication in a healthcare context, future research needs to explore the effects of social media on quality of interpersonal communication and the extent to which it impacts healthcare

This article discussed the importance of patients being able to research and learn about their healthcare online and that they use websites such as Facebook and Twitter to get their information. With more than 400 million users on Facebook, 105 million on Twitter, 112 million using health blogs and 6.5 billion views on YouTube more and more patients are getting their information and advice from these sources. A study provided from John Trader stated that more Americans would rather get their information online than from an actual provider and that they are more confident when searching online as they feel the information is more truthful. Patients want to be more proactively involved in their own healthcare and need those honest interactions when searching on the web. With healthcare always growing and expanding social media websites will continue to grow as well and it is up to each provider on how they want to

The article suggests that the use of social media has become common and expected among the millennial generation, as they have grown up with this technology. The author indicates, however, that nursing students may not be aware of their professional responsibilities with regard

Approximately 3.6 billion people have access to mobile devices, however only forty percent have access to the internet with their mobile device. Social media impacts information sharing and can help spread correct information during problematic times of rumors during health care crisis and health event. Public health may use social media as a tool to disseminate time sensitive information related to health. Social media can be a two way street and allows non-experts to share information as well. An example was the misinformation given during the Ebola crisis in 2014. The issue with Ebola was public health did respond in a timely manner causing the spread of rumors during this event which cause public panic (Huffington Post, 2018). It is important for public health to be ready for crisis with ways to get the appropriate message to staff volunteers and

The internet has become the main source of health information seeking, believe Dai, Liu, Su and Yi (2014). In their survey they found more than half of Chinese respondents use Baidu and Google to seek health information as well as professional websites, such as 999 Health,, before perhaps logging on to hospital or pharmaceutical enterprise websites.

With the use of social media there is always going to be issues with the quality of information. The main limitation of health information that is found on social media is the lack of reliability and

These past few weeks of health informatics have brought to light many important aspects of technology within the health setting. My fellow classmates and I have gotten the chance to dig deep and learn about the use of health informatics in care such as with evidence-based nursing, media methods patient’s use to find health information, online communities of practice (CoP), and the use of Personal Health Records (PHR). I believe these innovations can be increasingly helpful in the care process, but they are each still accompanied by their own consequences or adverse aspects. Further, it will be my job as a nurse to address these innovations with my patients and provide care in a way that will bring to light the associated negatives and/or positives.

Mattingly (2015), provides a description of using social media towards patients and physicians for patient

The internet empowers people to seek health information and play a larger role in their diagnosis and treatment. A survey done by harrisinteractive.com found that eighty six percent of internet users said they were scanning the web for healthcare and disease-specific information. This is greatly higher than in 1999, which was seventy one percent (Binshan Lin 28). The results show that patients are becoming more knowledgeable about their health and seek to become partners in their care.