I would like to have any comments and views from all researchers regarding to what extant the social media can improve health literacy especially among young peoples.
There is a some real scope here for this but as usual it comes with cautions. A significant amount of the material in the regular press on health is very poor quality and there is a danger that the social media will duplicate and even amplify it.
The tendency in health reporting over many years is the polarised models of health scares and scientific breakthrough variety. Both of which as seriously flawed and capable of dissemination misleading and even dangerous messages.
Health reporting is a badly contaminated form of communication containing lots of bias and propaganda. If social media is to convey any useful information on health literacy the dangers of the bad reports need to be fully understood by all consumers.
The potential is great but just like for conventional media one needs to choose their social media sources both carefully and wisely. Having said that some reliable sources are now available. Here is the link to one of them http://hcsm.plus91.in/p/4017300140/2014/03/13/forum-on-social-media-in-health-explodes-on-twitter
Plus I also suggest the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) which can be readily found via Google search.
Social media has a huge potential to improve health literacy, especially in the young people.
60% of the internet users access social media related to health (The Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2009 ). It's well known that the majority of the internet users are the young population.
Potential for anonymity is an advantage to the individuals when coming to the usage of social media. This helps them in opening up more and asking questions and thereby improve their understanding and knowledge about their health.
Two strategies of social media that can be used to improve the health literacy in young people are:
Social Marketing : where the product is health or a change in lifestyle can also be used for changing health behaviours. It can also limit or erase psychological, social and practical barriers to health behaviour.
Social influence: an important driver of behaviour and hence peer to peer and social network communications of campaign messages brings about a huge difference.
So, social media is an untapped treasure holding a huge potential for improving health literacy of the population ,especially the young people.
Viral marketing is very important here. Messages and ads with viral potential can be spread from consumer to consumer in a fast, economical and efficient manner!
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