6. Health Campaigns
In this modern age people can track how many steps they have taken, google symptoms to receive a diagnosis and are even able to track sleep patterns. These services are known as digital health. The definition of digital health refers to a health service/information delivered or enhanced through the internet and related technologies (Eyesbach 2011, pp.1). In 2012 Pew Research Centre did a survey which revealed that one in three US adults have gone online to diagnose a condition and half have consulted their medical professional as to what they found. They also found that 88% of caregivers look online for medical information (Pew Research Centre 2012).
So now we understand what is digital health let's look at it in the case of social media. When I think about digital health I think of the endless fitness apps, the constant monitoring it allows and of course the notorious ‘fitbit’ that seemed to take over the world a couple of years ago but I definitely do NOT think about it relating to social media. Although after a few too many coffees and a little bit of research I realised that there has been various health campaigns launched onto social media that have reached a global audience.
I’m sure anyone that was on social media in the summer of 2014 would remember the ice bucket challenge. For those who don’t remember, people dunked a bucket of iced water over their heads in order to solicit donations before nominating others to do the same to raise money for ALS.
Various celebrities posted videos and soon enough it became a viral challenge. Although it did go viral, the success of this campaign can be criticised. Time magazine called it “problematic in almost every way”, going on to say that “most of its participants… didn’t mention the disease at all”. On the other hand this viral campaign raised more than 100m in a 30 day period which has allowed to fund various research projects into the disease. So you may be thinking, what is your opinion on this Bess? Well to be honest I remember this challenge clearly and commenting on how the meaning behind it definitely did get lost but I can’t argue with the numbers, if the project managed to raise that amount of money in that short of a period I would have to say it was successful.
When thinking about it I do think it is very interesting how health organisations are able to bring awareness to various diseases through social media. I guess a major controversial factor is that social media has been linked to mental health issues. So we are advertising health campaigns on a medium where people find social media a major problem for their own health and wellbeing. Behind one post can lie anxiety and emotional suffering brought on by how many likes, shares and comments they will get (McCosker 2016, pp.1). Health in social media is very controversial and overall digital health does have various problems behind the concept. I want to know what you think as I don’t have a clean cut opinion on this one, do you think that health campaigns should be apart of social media?
References
Eyesbach, G 2001, ‘What is E-Health’, Journal of Medical Internet Research, vol.3, no.2, pp. 1-2
Pew Research Centre 2012, Pew Research Survey for American Health Habits, viewed 1st May 2017, <http://www.chcf.org/publications/2013/01/pew-survey-online-health>
McCosker, A. (2016) 'Digital Mental Health and Visibility: Tagging Depression', in P. Messaris and L. Humphreys, Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication (2nd edn), Peter Lang.
Wolf, N 2016, Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge?, The Guardian, viewed 1st May 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/26/ice-bucket-challenge-als-charity-gene-discovery
