Osborne, Miles

Pagliari, Claudia

Taylor, Joanna

English

Health and wellness are dominant societal concerns, which isreflected in their presence on Social Media. People with diabetes use arange of Social Media to share information, build knowledge and seekpeer support, but surprisingly little is known about how this behaviourvaries across platforms. We drew data from a 10 day period in September2014 from Twitter, Facebook and the Diabetes.co.uk discussion forum andclassified these according to their informational and social properties,using Bales Interaction Process Analysis (IPA). Contrary to thegeneralisations made in previous research, Twitter is chiefly used forinformation dissemination, whilst Facebook and Diabetes.co.uk are alsoused for social interaction and peer support. These differences exist due tothe structure of these platforms, including the potential for threadeddiscussions, the specificity of the user base and the presence of amoderator, each of which influence the nature of member interactions.Our novel findings contribute new insight about the social function ofdifferent Social Media in healthcare and the relative value of these SocialMedia as sources of data for health research, tools for health promotionand intervention, as well as forums for community and patientengagement

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Understanding the social dynamics of Twitter, Facebook and Diabetes.co.uk and their value implications for patients and health researchers

https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/54485134/Taylor_Pagliari_Osborne_2015_Understanding_the_social_dynamics_of_Twitter_Facebook_and_Diabetes.co.uk_and_their_value_implications_for_patients_and_health_global_health_2015_5_10_70086.pdf

Understanding the social dynamics of Twitter, Facebook and Diabetes.co.uk and their value implications for patients and health researchers

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