Social Media And Healthcare Professionals: Article Analysis

Relying on the internet for health and wellness In recent years, we have seen social media be used in multiple ways, some of these being negative and some positive. Many have used this new outlet as a way of communicating to others around the world. They share ideas, exchange opinions and improve others understanding of certain topics. A great example of this are physicians and scientists.
Physicians have used social media now more than ever. C. Lee Ventola’s article Social Media and Healthcare Professionals: Benefits, Risks, and Best Practices, discusses the various ways physicians use social media and the benefits it provides for them:
Physicians most often join online communities where they can read news articles, listen to experts, research
This has become revolutionary not only for doctors, but to the rest of the population without a doctorate degree. In past generations, people have regular set- up appointments to go to the doctor in order to increase their health and wellness. Now however, with the development of google,our symptoms can be researched with ease. In addition, one does not have to experience the hassle of making appointments and it closes us off of interaction with people, making us more independent and dependent on the internet. With this new independence, we feel that we are able to somewhat cure ourselves and save thousands of dollars while doing so. However, this comes with an attitude of laziness and sometimes the internet is not the most reliable source due to the edits people make on websites. With these edits, people believe something to be true because the website appears to be reliable, but in fact ignorant people make edits constantly. Therefore, our dependence on the internet is both good and bad because although it can temporarily make us feel better, doctors most likely have more knowledge and lack the ignorance of the
Before, kids usually used to tease and pick on each other at school, but now we see this drastically changing with phones. Google defines cyberbullying as “the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.” Kids often find bullying behind a screen much, much easier and can do it anywhere to anyone. This is truly an epidemic, seeing as “more than half of adolescents have been bullied and about the same number have engaged in cyberbullying” (Adams, Richard). Schools can’t punish for it, since it's usually not done on school grounds and mostly done on weekends when students have more free time on their hands. Consequently, students determine it's acceptable to continue their behavior. Screens dehumanize others by allowing them to escape the face-to-face