Abstract
The objective of the research was to study the pattern of social media use among adolescents visiting an inner city hospital emergency department. A brief survey (English/Spanish) regarding social media use was conducted between January and March 2010. Participants were 215 teens (13-18 years), 59% of whom were Hispanic. The majority (78.6%) of participants were current users of social media. MySpace (65%) was the favored social networking web site. The study revealed that 44% of adolescents most frequently (>5 times/day) connected with their proximate peers, and 36 teens sought health information "once in a while." We concluded that social media networking was popular among our adolescent study subjects and may have future potential as an effective health education tool.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 147-161 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2012 |
Keywords
- adolescent
- emergency
- health information
- social media
- social networking
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health(social science)