a prescription for healthy social media
There are many benefits to health-related social media, as well as potential drawbacks. In an attempt to emphasize the advantageous aspects, we provide a prescription for healthy social media usage.
Social media is a ubiquitous aspect to modern life. It is pervasive throughout our professional and personal lives. Irrespective of the domain or purpose of use of social media, there are benefits to its use as well as drawbacks, as is the case with anything. Given the nature of these platforms and the current nature of many aspects of content development and engagement, the negative aspects can appear to outweigh the positive potential. By recognizing and emphasizing the advantages to incorporating social media within healthcare practices, we can attempt to make its usage more healthy.
Previous articles in this series have discussed in greater detail the benefits to integrating health-related social media within healthcare practices. This applies equally to traditional and non-traditional types of practice. Social media platforms provide healthcare professionals with opportunities to more widely disseminate information amongst their target audience than is possible through traditional media and means. This allows for far greater reach, as well as greater inclusion of underserviced and geographically remote populations. The obvious benefit is reaching a greater number of people with one’s content and message. This can include educational materials as well as recommendations for optimizing health-related skills and behaviors.
Another important benefit of health-related social media is the ability to network with other healthcare professionals to a far greater extent than would otherwise be possible. This includes discussion of difficult and challenging patient care situations, research findings and collaboration on future investigations. The networking opportunities afforded through social media extend throughout the world, thereby creating the potential for more varied and wide-reaching networking than any professional would otherwise experience.
The engagement between platforms as well as with patients and the general population provides another important potential benefit to health-related social media. This extent of debate and discussion, provided it is conducted constructively, can promote learning, professional development, and exchange of ideas that synergistically can provide a highly positive experience. Needless to say, this is predicated on the discussion being respectful, constructive, and open.
As with many different aspects of life, there are potential drawbacks and negative aspects to health-related social media. Many of these have also been described in previous articles in this series. Owing to the highly curated nature of many social media platforms, including health-related platforms, the issue of hustle culture may be increased and propagated. Many consumers of health-related social media may, unknowingly and unintentionally, become caught up in this culture leading to possibly unhealthy and unattainable expectations and working conditions. There can be several deleterious effects of hustle culture with resulting negative impacts on health and wellbeing.
Another downside to social media is the increasing challenge of the expression of conflict through both content and engagement. The issue of moral outrage has been recently discussed in this series. While expression of concern and even outrage may be appropriate in some circumstances, the issue negatively impacting health-related social media occurs when this expression becomes personal, including attacks on individuals and the associated loss of professional demeanor. The negative direct effects of this type of behavior are evident, however there can also be indirect effects such as individuals feeling isolated and self-censoring. This directly contradicts the previously described potential benefits of open debate and exchange of ideas.
Potential dissemination of health-related misinformation is another important possible negative effect of social media. As with the other considerations this has been discussed in greater detail in prior articles. The distribution of misinformation can result in individuals starting or perpetuating unhealthy, perhaps even dangerous, practices as a result of the information that was provided which is not accurate or current. This type of information can also impede the progress of science towards improved understanding of the issues impacting health and health-related treatments.
While it is clear that there are both advantageous aspects to social media as well as drawbacks, the issue becomes how best to promote the potential benefits, effectively increasing the ‘health’ of social media. Such a philosophy would increase the net benefit of both health-related content development and associated engagement. This would benefit healthcare professionals and their target audiences. There are a few strategies that could be implemented to maximize the benefits of social media while simultaneously reducing the drawbacks.
The reliance on an evidence-driven approach to content development and engagement would be highly beneficial. The evidence-driven approach has been previously described. This effectively relies upon integration of the most current and high quality evidence in both distribution of content and subsequent discussion. This paradigm is considerate of the totality of the available evidence, prioritizing that which is of highest quality. This philosophy also ensures that, due to the emphasis on the evidence, that theories and recommendations are updated as evidence evolves. The aim is to progress in our understanding of a given topic, not prove that one is correct or another incorrect. Not only does this process provide the greatest opportunity for developing our understanding, it also reduces the likelihood of personal attacks.
A related recommendation is the emphasis of application of an objective framework for the evaluation and appraisal of claims made on social media. By emphasizing the evidence and consistently utilizing an objective framework, a more constructive process is used to assess the nature of claims presented on social media platforms. By emphasizing an evaluation of the evidence, a better understanding of the issues is obtained and more constructive debate and discussion can ensue. The resulting engagement is less personal and, ideally, absent of personal attacks and invalid arguments. This paradigm is more consistent with the scientific pursuit of a greater understanding of the given issues.
Another important consideration is the open and respectful discussion and debate of ideas. All too often, the current paradigm is a closed-minded argument that includes personal attacks and does not foster an environment conducive to the exchange of ideas and the pursuit of a greater understanding. This negatively impact us all. By encouraging open dialogue and debate, particularly of competing ideas, everyone benefits through a greater understanding of the evidence, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of their own and the opposing viewpoints. This paradigm also reduces the likelihood of individuals self-censoring.
In addition to these considerations for improving the ‘health’ of social media platforms, it is also important that the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and wellbeing of the individuals developing and consuming content be promoted. In essence, it is important that ‘we all practice what we preach’ when it comes to promotion of health and wellbeing. This includes integration of the established practices of mind-based and body-based skills and strategies, as well as avoidance of hustle culture and creation of boundaries related to social media use and content development. Ideally, the consumption of social media as well as the creation of content should be intentional and deliberate and not at the expense of our health and wellbeing.
House Call Media provides healthcare trained social medial management and evidence-driven content development for traditional and non-traditional healthcare practices and social media platforms. Our philosophy is in alignment with the discussion above in the attempt to curate constructive, productive, and mutually beneficial health-related social media that aims to improve health and develop a greater understanding of pertinent issues.
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