Social Media in Health and Medicine: Medlibs Round 2.7

Welcome to Medlib’s Round, edition 2.7, the monthly blog carnival highlighting excellent blog posts in the field of medical information. Just under a year ago, we hosted MedLibs Round 1.8: Finding Credible Health Information Online. For this edition, we wanted to focus on how social media is being used to promote health information online.

Social media in health and medicine
There’s a revolution occurring on the Web: those “authoritative” articles written on traditional, static websites are being replaced with blogs, wikis and online social networks. In the sphere of health, medicine and information technology, this “real-time Web” consists of many who are professionals in the field; their posts are listed below.
In the digital age, these are the characteristics of new media: recent, relevant, reachable and reliable.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the term mobile is being used quite often when discussing social media and health. Indeed, according to a recent Pew Internet report, 59% of adults are now accessing the internet wirelessly using a laptop or cell phone [1].

Keeping with this month’s theme, we’re tweeting and sharing posts using the Twitter hashtags #medinfo and #medlibs. If you like a particular post, share it with your friends and be sure to add both hashtags.