Social networking
From HLWIKI Canada
 To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the wiki index.
IntroductionSee also Information technology topics Social networking sites (SNSs) are web-based services such as Twitter and Facebook that allow users to create profiles where "friends" can be made with others (including strangers), digital objects can be shared and commented on and a 'digital presence' can be created. In many SNSs, users confirm when they want to be friends with others be they actual friends, family or complete strangers. Many social networks offer privacy controls that permit their users to control who will get to view their profiles; these tools are part of web 2.0 and the rise of digital interaction. A recent social networking phenomenon is Location-based social networking sites (SNSs). Informal social networks have existed since the early days of the Internet but have expanded exponentially in recent years. One of the problems, as their critics allege, about SNSs is that they collect data about members and share this information as social capital. The data and profiles are shared with members and companies. SNSs provide mechanisms to create personal pages and fill them with content such as blogs, digital photographs, music, short video clips and more. Networks are formed around this content as members link their pages to those of their friends and search through websites in search of new friends who might share their interests. Membership on SNSs is on the rise. Facebook is one of the most popular websites on the Internet - second only to Yahoo in the number of page views per day with over 600 million members. This is two or three times the traffic of Google per day! Facebook is also rated the top site for 18-to-24-year-olds; these numbers are increasing. Misuse of FacebookFor all its benefits, the rise of social media in healthcare brings two diametrically opposed forces into conflict: the transparent public nature of social media and rigid compliance guidelines designed to protect privacy. The challenges of social media in health reside in the gray areas of usage such as those nursing students expelled from school for being photographed with a placenta or nurses who post on Facebook about their disdain for treating cop-killers. Policymakers must go beyond writing social media policies and engage health professionals about usage. In May 2010, a Western Michigan University student went to Facebook to vent his frustrations over getting his car towed. He got several hundred others to comment about a towing company but then they retaliated with a lawsuit. Here is the full story in the New York Times. Increasingly, there are complaints leading to lawsuits in the major social media information channels. Medical applicationsSNSs are being adopted by health care professionals as a way to do networking with other physicians and medical professionals. Further, they are seen as a means to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer-to-peer (P2P) knowledge and highlight individual physicians' and institutional achievements. A number of new examples of medical SNS include LinkedIn, Konnects, Sermo and Within3. Dedicated medical SNSs require that all members be screened against state licensing board lists. In addition, SNSs are of interest to pharmaceutical companies who spend "32 percent of their marketing dollars" to influence opinion leaders in medicine, and within medical social networks. Some techno-savvy health librarians have started to experiment with microblogging using Twitter, a social networking tool that lets your contacts know what you are doing at any given time via phone, instant messaging or on the web. Library applicationsThere are several ways libraries can utilize social networking tools. Since library work inevitably involves interactions with communities of users, social networking is a digital extension of our liaison activities. This work may be more important in the years ahead given the ubiquity of online access, the limited use of physical libraries, and the need to share knowledge with our clients, and each other. Librarians can use these tools to assist clientele to share information across their network of friends. By creating discussion groups and communities of practice (COPs) on MySpace or similar resources, health librarians can meet some of the information needs of health professionals. For instance, there are discussion groups for users who want to discuss treatments of specific injuries. Librarians working with the general public might also consider recommending or even setting up support groups for a particular condition or a disease, like the MySpace Cure Diabetes group. Specifically geared for use in the library environment is a tool called Library Thing (LT). LT is a library social network site and a place for members to register the books they are reading; it promotes social interactions, book recommendations, self-classification, and monitoring of new books as well. References
|
, 
