On Wednesday May 1st, Nicole Ghanie-Opondo (@todayisbanana) moderated our tweetchat and asked the community how social media can serve behaviour change messages and help track diseases. As an introduction to the discussion she wrote an article in her blog – Behaviour Change, Disease Tracking & Social Media?
T1: People have tuned out of some behaviour messaging – can SM help?
Generally speaking, when it comes to behavior changes there is no miracle and most hcsmca-ers agreed that social media can’t be “the solution”. However, according to some chat participants, social media can provide useful peer support. By sharing real stories people may feel less alone and be influenced by the positive behaviour changes of others in their networks – “if you/they can do it, so can I”.
T1: SM can help folks empower themselves to change behaviours, especially when they meet others going through the same thing. #hcsmca
The opposite is also true because social media can be used to refute these wrong information through the sharing of studies for example.
@cartooninperson As community manager I’ve often used SM to correct info & slow rumours on things like ‘super STIs’ #hcsmca
— Nicole Ghanie-Opondo (@TodayisBananas) 1 mai 2013
The members debated about the length of the messages on social media and they notably said that short messages can be perceived as bossy. However, for others these messages are less pushy than longer ones.
@todayisbananas Yes, definitely. It’s hard to get message across in 140 char without sounding bossy sometimes! #hcsmca ^aw