There was an interesting article titled “Social Media and the Health System” in the winter 2011 issue of The Permanente Journal authored by Ted Eytan, MD, MS, MPH, Jeffrey Benabio, MD, Vince GollaRahul Parikh, MD, and Sara Stein, MD.
The article starts off with the following quote from Sidney Garfield, MD: “You know institutions tend to become static; they build walls around themselves to protect themselves from change, and eventually die. You should fight that by opening up your thinking and your ideas, and work for a change.
Here is a brief exerpt: “Social networking is not a program or a Web site; it is a community of people who share similar interests and activities who interact through online and mobile technologies. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs are Web platforms used to connect people and transform the publishing of media from broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. The rapid and extensive penetration into society of these sites is related to their ability to facilitate talking as well as listening, consuming as well as participating. Whereas it took nearly 40 years for computers to become mainstream, it took Facebook less than 6 months to add 100 million people. Today more than 500 million people use Facebook regularly. Among adults in the US, 42% use social networking sites. Among young adults (age 18-29 years), the figure is an impressive 86%.”
You can read the entire article for free at this link.
