E-ISSN 2231-3206 | ISSN 2320-4672

2020, Vol:9,Issue:5

Research Articles
  • Indi J Medic Science and P Health.2020; Volume:9(5):314-320 doi : 10.5455/ijmsph.2020.05073202001062020
  • Social media, purpose, and use of it: A community-based cross-sectional study in a rural area of a developing nation (India)
  • Paresh Prajapati, Sourabh Paul, Shyam Mehera, Varun Malhotra, Tanvir Kaur Sidhu,Kailash Chandra Verma

Abstract

Background: Over the past two decades, the world has witnessed drastic progress in the field of communication. Social media are the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing, and collaboration. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to determine the prevalence of social media use, pattern, and purpose of use and usefulness for conveying health education.
Materials and Methods: The current study was undertaken; in a rural community of Punjab province of India from September 2018 to February 2019. Participants were interviewed using a pre-designed, pre-tested structured interview schedule.
Results: The total number of participants in the study was 4000. Six hundred eighteen (15.5%) had a smartphone and among them, nearly 90% were using internet. The proportion of male participants (22.9%) using smartphone was significantly higher than female. Seven hundred and forty-two (18.5%) had heard of any form of social media, in which WhatsApp (13.1%) was the most common. The prevalence of the use of social media among the participants was 13.5% (n = 542). Friendship and entertainment were the major purposes for using of social media. Nearly 80% of the social media users think that it should be used more for health education, but only 11.8% of the users thought that the government was using this platform very successfully. Young, male, educated, employed, and business class was using significantly more social media for communication.
Conclusions: Media is changing as well as health care and medicine, so time has come to consider one of the cost-effective and popular media to solve complex and diverse problems of health and disease.