Abstract

The medical field has seen major transformations and changes in perception, with many patients turning to social media sites like TikTok and Instagram for advice and health information. Social media effectively facilitates learning opportunities and the spread of information; it has changed many industries, opening new doors and opportunities in those affected, including the medical field. Social media has had a flow-on effect in shifting our perception of medical practice, leading to communities being more interactive online, moving even further from traditional medical advice practices. The paper is focused on exploring key points that have had a transformative impact on the medical field, outlining the importance of producing materials with medical credibility. It examines medical anxiety and the importance of exploring when taking medical advice from social media due to the extensive amounts of false information. Despite these challenging elements, social media continues to be a powerful tool for communities to navigate their health; embracing the complexities is essential to healthcare.

Introduction

Social Media has solidified its place and usefulness in many industries, creating opportunities to learn and share. Still, the spread of information can pose a threat when concerned with the medical industry. Medical information is readily available online, which is a great tool and can raise much-needed awareness for medical issues like melanoma or bowel cancer that are seeing a major increase in cases in young people, in which social media is a great way to reach a younger audience. Social media has transformed the health community and created an increase in medical diagnoses. This has stemmed from TikTok creators and even ‘health’ influencers creating a call to action for personal health, which can be beneficial. Still, many of these creators lack qualifications and credibility, which leads to questionable information. The questionable information can create health anxieties as stated (Smailhodzic, 2016), “Everybody with access to social media can post “advice” on how to deal with a certain health condition”, which can discredit the knowledge of healthcare professionals and lead to patients ignoring professional advice and shifting to solely community and social media based advice. The dark side of health on social media and the apparent reasons for the change for healthcare professionals are credibility, the spread of misinformation, the increase of health-related anxieties and the privacy concerns of sharing one’s health issues and questions with the internet, which has led to extreme transformations in medical practice.

Discussion

Social media has increased the conversations around health and looking after your personal health, which has greatly benefited communities and medical professionals. Promoting a healthy lifestyle can lead to trends focused on personal health, such as running clubs or creating gym communities. Social media has a great sway on viewers’ lifestyle ideals, which reveals how prevalent the content and advice are: “Social media have been linked to highly significant political events…as well as to widespread societal trends, including the shortening of individuals’ attention spans and the decline of print news media.” (Muhlen, 2012) The change in views and attention span due to social media is extensive and shows just how important it is to establish a presence on social media for any industry due to the platforms ability to have major affects on anyone interacting with the content.

Communities have started to take medical advice from social media rather than medical practitioners or peer-to-peer discussion; TikTok and Instagram have become commonly used third spaces for health-based discussion, which has pushed for practitioners to move online to be involved in these third spaces. This shows that social media can have a positive effect on communities health knowledge, “When used wisely and prudently, social media sites and platforms offer the potential to promote individual and public health, as well as professional development and advancement.” (Ventola, 2014) it is important to take what you see in online communities with a grain of salt and seek professional advice, which needs to be reiterated by many influencers and communities posting medical aide online that is readily available to anyone on social media.

Credibility for medical practitioners and anyone posting medical and health advice on social media is essential. To ensure credibility for those sharing medical information online, there are suggested guidelines for healthcare professionals. As reiterated by (Ventola, 2014), content credibility, legal concerns, licensing concerns, network practices, patient care, patient and personal privacy, professional ethics and self-identification are all factors that should be outlined in any medical professional’s social media or community engagement. These guidelines are heavily suggested as there can also be the risk of licensing issues or even a violation of patient boundaries and privacy concerns; an example of this would be Dr Katherine Roxanne Grawe, commonly known as ‘Dr Roxy”, who live-streamed her patients surgeries on TikTok and is now losing her medical license in the state of Ohio, she was apprehended due to video evidence of her poor practice “Grawe looking at the camera instead of what she was doing during the one-hour operation.” (Filby, 2023). She was given notices and reprimanded for her lack of boundaries on social media, “The board had summarily suspended Grawe’s medical license in November after twice reprimanding her. The board said in its notification to her that it had determined her “continued practice presents a danger of immediate and serious harm to the public.” (Frehse, Campinoti, 2023) This explicitly shows the potential consequences for medical professionals sharing content online and how imperative it is to keep to strict guidelines. Although her practices are inherently unprofessional, she aimed to educate through her social media practices. However, she needed to strictly follow guidelines to rule out legal concerns and ethical issues in her content.

Privacy concerns for patients are much less of a worry as many people are open to being transparent online for a response from a desired community, but that is not always the case. Social media is not a place where you can actively choose where your public information ends up, as algorithms and popularity cannot be controlled, possibly leading to undesired communities interacting with the content. There are extreme cases like ‘Dr Roxy’ who filmed and posted a large majority of her surgeries. “Unlike most who go under the knife, Sarah had footage of her operation because Dr Roxy” — as her surgeon was more commonly known — had posted a video of her procedure on Snapchat and possibly other social media platforms.” (Filby, 2023) Filming agreements would have been made before the surgery. However, the lack of focus from the surgeon should be a major concern, as well as the continuous ability to access her surgery footage on multiple social media platforms.

Due to the social media space being commonly used by mostly a young audience, their questions and answers for anything are likely found on the internet. “For a majority of youth, online social networking sites are their first point of call when they want to find information, including health-related matters” (Denecke, 2015); this has the potential to create privacy issues for minors and exposure to intimidating and advanced advice that could create anxieties whereas, in traditional medical practice, there are laws and ethical standards in place to combat any of the patients privacy concerns and preventing exposure to incorrect medical advice.

In many communities, misinformation and rumours can spread exponentially, specifically on social media, where unverified or unaccredited information can reach extremely large audiences. Social media is highly focused on interactions, which can shift algorithms to spread incorrect and harmful information. “It actually takes six times as long for the truth to reach 1,500 people as it does falsehoods. The health of your patients is at stake here, and social media is known for promoting inconsistent information.” (Digitalis, 2022) This details exactly how imperative it is for health professionals to be active online and compact, quickly spreading falsehoods that can affect many communities’ third spaces.

The medical field has seen an epidemic of patients asking for referrals to psychiatrists for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, “National population surveys reflect an increase in the prevalence from 6.1% to 10.2% in the 20-year period from 1997 to 2016” (Abdelnour, 2022) which is not an extreme increase but with treatments being a highly restricted drug that increases is concerning, “experts worry about the risk of overdiagnosis and subsequent overprescription of stimulants and other psychotropics” (Abdelnour, 2022) this has the possibility to harm patients majorly. This also leads to the issue of self-diagnosis due to being exposed to the creator’s experiences, which can influence or resonate with audiences. “Increasingly, mental health professionals observe children and teens “self-diagnosing” mental disorders after watching influencers discuss them on TikTok and other social media platforms.” (McVay, 2023). Influencers can have many benefits for health care on social media. However, the overexposure to symptoms and anecdotes that many audiences can relate to is a major factor in the increase in self-diagnosis. This also leads to facilitating health anxieties due to experiencing similar experiences or symptoms to these influences; again, medical practitioners will need to reiterate on social media how important it is to speak to your doctor, which shows how complicated the healthcare landscape has become due to social media.

Extremely fast transactions of information on social media can lead to an epidemic of anxiety, especially in health-related cases. Many people have anxieties related to health concerns due to the lack of support and reiteration from health professionals through social media, where information is easily accessible; health anxiety is defined as “a persistent fear of illness or disease that often involves the misinterpretation of bodily symptoms as signs of serious illness” (Jones et al., 2015). Knowing that health information on social media can cause this for many people is concerning and almost outweighs the benefits.

To ensure that social media can be a safe space for communities change and action within the medical field is essential to ensure safe intakes of advice, “With patients going online to discuss their health and research their conditions, it is essential for healthcare professionals and organisations to maintain a social web presence and have a voice in these conversations.” (Alsughayr, 2015) This is a different approach to medical practice, directly showing the medical field’s transformation due to social media; it is also a preventative measure that would aid in reducing health anxiety within communities. Online communities solely for well-regulated medical advice would be a great alternative to social media. However, due to the high usage of TikTok and Instagram, information is primarily shared there instead of allocated spaces.

Conclusion

Social media has created major changes for medical practitioners, adding to the already complicated field, but it has also had many beneficial effects on communities. Social media has facilitated awareness of critical health problems, allowing for a change in communities’ perception of their health. However, despite the positives, there are still many complications for healthcare professionals, including turning to social media for advice instead of seeking professional help, which ultimately has changed many communities’ perceptions of medical practices and care. In the future of health and social media, a collaboration would be beneficial to balance ethics and regulations to enhance healthcare delivery on social media, fostering healthier communities. Ultimately, due to social media, communities perceptions of their personal health and health practices have shifted, complicating but furthering the medical landscape.

References

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