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Social media can be useful for doctors
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
Social networks, as previously noted by experts, have a negative impact on a person, in particular, addiction to social networks can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety and even suicide.
But in the latest study, experts came to the conclusion that social networks can help doctors and their patients. Doctors will be able to better prepare for a patient’s appointment and communication with them.
Such conclusions were made by specialists at the University of Vancouver. As is known, recently more and more users are turning to the Internet to search for information regarding health, however, who takes part in online discussions on medical topics remained unknown.
To find out, the scientists spent six months studying online conversations on the social networking site Twitter devoted to stem cell research and spinal cord injury and Parkinson's disease.
The results showed that 25% of the reports were more or less about spinal cord injuries, and 15% were about Parkinson's disease, and were written by doctors.
A huge number of messages contained information about new developments by scientists, including medical breakthroughs in this field.
Most often, users wrote links to unique studies and news. Users who wrote about spinal cord injuries discussed clinical trials conducted by specialists, and the group that wrote about Parkinson's disease more often communicated about new methods and mechanisms of treatment.
Less than 5% of user posts were negative and related to stem cell research.
At the beginning of their study, the researchers believed that most users were skeptical about new treatments.
As scientists noted, social networks should be used more often to monitor patients' mood.
Another interesting discovery was made by specialists from Melbourne and Pennsylvania. In their work, they also studied social networks, in particular Twitter, and came to the conclusion that this social network can tell about the risks of cardiovascular diseases.
The psychological mood of society is reflected in users' microblogs. As the study showed, negative emotions in tweets (fatigue, anger, stress) were related to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, while positive emotions, such as optimism, accordingly reduced the likelihood of pathology.
There was one interesting point in this study - as is known, in most cases, people who keep negativity to themselves die from cardiovascular diseases; those who are surrounded by a negative atmosphere (problems at work, in the family, with friends, etc.) are at particular risk.
After assessing messages written by users in 2009-2010, the scientists examined tweets and health data from more than a thousand counties. The experts analyzed people's emotions based on the words they used in their tweets.
The goal was to identify the relationship between the health and emotional state of users. As a result, it was found that frequent use of swear words increased the risk of death from cardiovascular pathologies. Scientists also took into account other factors - level of education, income, etc.
These findings are confirmed by another study, which showed that negatively minded people are more likely to suffer from heart and vascular diseases, they are more susceptible to alcoholism, tend to eat unhealthy food, and avoid contact with other people.
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