Use Of Social Media (Face Book) To Promote Health Education: Content Analysis Of Health Pages And User’s Perceptions
Abstract
In today’s world of technological advancements, social media is very popular among people of all age group due to its easy and fast access of getting and disseminating all type of information and knowledge. With this consideration, social media is also contributing to promote health education which is very crucial part of every one’s life. The present study encompasses the content analysis of the face book pages on health education to explore how and what types of health education benefiting to the users. Ten different face book pages were selected which is promoting health education with different names and contents. The discussion with the followers of these pages was also generated on Facebook to know their opinion regarding the health pages. The analysis depicted that number of face book pages related to health education are based on physical and mental health by focusing providing information related to health habits of eating, and life style. Few pages are also providing spiritual and environmental health to enhance health seeking behaviors. As these facebook pages develops as community and public groups, therefore, numbers of likes and followers shows popularity among the people of all ages who are not only getting benefits but also share more information on health matters. In this way, everyone can get access to various health matters to upgrade their knowledge in terms of health related research articles, books and health related website. The followers who like these pages are having the opinion of getting benefits from these pages in terms of attaining knowledge about healthy living. It is concluded that besides providing the general information to the audience, the health related facebook pages are also promoting research horizon to explore the different avenues of health issues. Based on some discussant’s opinion it is recommended to verify the authenticity of the information given before following it as health is very crucial and sensitive matters for the individuals.
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