The year is 2019, well into the twenty-first century, where we live in an age that can be described as modern and advanced. Our lived have been enriched by all sorts of new technologies in all aspects such as education, agriculture, medicine, conducting business, and just our daily lives. It has never been easier to acquire a product, with Amazon Prime you can virtually have anything you want delivered to your door even within a day or same day, even using a drone. With Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing apps, a car that will take you wherever you need/want to go is a tap away. Uber Eats, DoorDash, Seamless, and other services have allows any craving never to go unsatisfied. The internet, the means by which we can share information instantly within the whole wide word, has grown to be an integral part of our lives. The invention of and innovations within smartphone technology really have made the internet extremely accessible. With the internet, social media and similar platforms, have come to rise. The envisioned greatness that such technological developments has recently been controversial, as many critique how much society has succumbed and become slaves to technology. Many rush to challenge society, and to point out all the adverse effects technology and social media have had on the health of us humans, both mentally and physically, and the health of our society, however, immediately overlook all the benefits. Social media and technological advancements have provided for great benefits to the health of our society and to the overall health of individuals world wide.
Social media is in essence provides for the ease of transferring information. Through most platforms it is extremely easy to post media (videos or pictures) or text for all followers, subscribers, or any one with an account to see. Instant messages containing any kind of files or texts can be sent to specific people, groups, etc. Each platform has its own appeal. Facebook is known for being a platform where it easy to connect to other people, friends, family, and people belonging to several communities. Facebook allows users to make posts, post pictures/videos, share personal information, follow pages and interests, as well as, like and comment on everything, and in recent years have added features such as live streaming, sending money, video chatting, stories, phone calls, selling, and even fundraising. Instagram is popular platform known for the use of posting pictures, private messaging, liking, commenting, and have recently introduced stories and live streaming. Snapchat is basically all stories and chats, and Youtube is stories, videos, commenting, and Twitter is for updating followers and the President, etc. While these are what we commonly associate as social media, and what many decide to constantly critique, there many other platforms as well as benefits which are not realized by the masses.
Reddit is a platform known as a forum, or a platform for discussion. As described by DigitalTrends, Reddit labels itself. as the front page of the internet as they have discussions on everything and anything including the most current events and developments. According to William Nicol, “If you spend a lot of time online, chances are you’ve heard of Reddit. The site bills itself as the “front page of the internet,” and that’s not an empty boast: As of this writing, Reddit is the fifth most popular site in the United States, according to Alexa, and the 18th worldwide. So what exactly is Reddit? Essentially, it’s a massive collection of forums, where people can share news and content or comment on other people’s posts,” (Nicol). Forums are places where information, ideas, and more can be shared and discussed. A great benefit of forums is the sharing of ideas pertaining to certain issues either with society of personal. Reddit has been known to be somewhat of a cesspool however. According to the very title of an article on Business Insider by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, “Reddit was such a cesspool in its early days, its employees had to deal with everything from pictures of genitals to photos of corpses on a regular basis,” (Lagorio-Chafkin). Due to the free nature of Reddit, people will take advantage, especially internet trolls who will post content to fuel reactions or to ruin someone’s day. A negative aspect with any technology is that a part of humanity will always try and use it with malicious intent. The smallest disagreements in relation to opinions will escalate arguments to new heights which cannot be described as anything but thoughtful discourse. In recent years, however, Reddit has made change through the shifts in company leadership and modernization of social media through the years. According to Brian Clark of Insider for The Next Web, “A recent study by Stanford University revealed the vast majority of Reddit’s conflicts originate in just one percent of its communities. Subreddits, as they’re known on the site, are category-specific groups that steer the conversation around a central topic or theme. And most are relatively tame. These are the groups responsible for thoughtful discourse and mostly respectful debate, the behavior that keeps most users engaged and active on the site,” (Clark). Reddit has changed and has been misinterpreted, it is a valid platform for constructive, enriching conversation.
This can be an extremely powerful tool when it comes to discussing health problems such as diseases and conditions. People can pose questions for discussion boards and advice can be shared to help those suffering from others with the same issue or experts. Recently, the anti-vaxxer movement has been controversial in the news media. The anti-vaxxer movement, is a movement of parents and others who intentionally refuse to vaccinate their children. They are found believing the false pretenses that vaccines cause autism in children and is a form of the government poisoning the children, etc. The fact that vaccines has been already disproven several times, no link was established. According the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “There is no link between vaccines and autism. Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD.” Due to anti-vaxxer activity in the Midwest of the United States, a measles outbreak has taken hold, a diseased believed to be eradicated. Not vaccinating the children, is not only a threat to them as individuals, but a public health hazard. The World Health Organization (WHO) named “Vaccination hesitancy” as one of the top ten threats to global health in 2019 up there with dengue fever, HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, ebola and other high risk pathogen, and others. According to the WHO, “Measles, for example, has seen a 30% increase in cases globally. The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy. However, some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence.” These diseases were practically gone.
Reddit became a powerful tool in educating people of the anti-vaxxer movement as well as those whose health has been affected. According to popular online health platform WebMD, “An Ohio teen went against his mother’s wishes and got vaccinated against the flu, hepatitis, tetanus and HPV. High school senior Ethan Lindenberger said his parents’ misguided anti-vaccine beliefs put him, and his younger siblings, at risk, CBS News reported. In November, the 18-year-old went on the online message board Reddit to ask where he could get up to date with his vaccinations. ‘My parents are kind of stupid,’ he wrote. ‘God knows how I’m still alive.’” While usually a child calling their parents stupid is looked down upon, in this case it is quite appropriate. Ethan Lindenberger used the discussion boards of Reddit to talk about living with anti-vaxxer parents, where he learned from those active on the website how his parents’ views were incorrect. Without any vaccinations, the boy began to doubt how he survived so long as so many no longer heard of diseases (measles, chicken pox) could have gotten to him so easily. Being so vulnerable, Lindenberger promptly got his vaccines against several diseases this past November. This a prime example of social media, Reddit in this case, helping improve an individual’s health, Lindenberger will now have a more powerful immune system and will not have to worry about ancient diseases, as well as, the health of society. People have been misled about vaccines and going unvaccinated is a public health issue and Reddit is doing its job re-educating people.
Another important power that Reddit gives the medical community and those suffering from disease, is focus groups. When a person has a condition which is chronic, or uncurable, or very hard to overcome, they often have the debilitating thoughts of “why me” or “why did this happen to me”, or even “why am I the only one”. People feel like god, the stars, or the entire universe did them wrong, whereas in reality, they are not the only ones suffering. People struggling with HIV/AIDS, cancer, cystic fibrosis, blindness, deafness, chronic pain, broken bones, depression, mental issues, as well as many other issues. People can meet others that are going through the exact same thing that they are and know that they are not alone. Just knowing that there are other people like that in the world makes them feel less lonely and more accepting of what is happening to them. These support group support each other going over hurdles and challenges and provide advice on what to do to overcome certain disabilities with their given conditions. Who better to help a person than someone going through the same thing.
These support groups for multiple ailments have been shown to have changed lives. People can be living perfectly normal ambitious lives, they can have been generally healthy their whole lives, when all of a sudden disaster strikes. There could be a new disease which is chronic or disfigurement which completely changes everything. It changes how they are looked at by their so-called friends, families, significant others, acquaintances, co-workers, and society as a whole. As was the case for Brooklynite Lauren Rothman, as she writes as guest in Huffington Post Personal article, “Pre-Lyme, I was blessed by a solid group of ride-or-dies: compassionate friends like my pal since college, who generously tolerated years of freak outs related to my on-again, off-again musician hookup, and another friend whose apartment around the corner from mine was a second home where we’d regularly watch hours of PBS cooking shows and paint and collage around his huge dining room table. I thought that these pillars of support would be there for me in my time of need. Instead, the opposite has been true: As my illness has progressed, formerly dear friends have gone absolutely MIA. Calls and texts first slowed, then stopped; even when I outright asked for favors, friends were often too absorbed in their busy, thriving lives to make time to bring me groceries or accompany me to a doctor’s appointment,” (Rothman). Rothman contracted Lyme disease from the Catskills region of New York State in 2017 and it changed her life since. She used to be a thriving freelance writer, getting assignments done, doing yoga, riding a bike, cooking health conscious food, just like the average Brooklynite would. Lyme disease hit and she was left struggling through life in excruciating pain, she states “It’s Monday morning, and as I slowly bob up to the surface of consciousness from the depths of sleep, I start to feel the pain. The burning sensation in my feet. The profound ache in my bones. The stiffness in each and every joint and muscle,” (Rothman). In such pain, and with her so called “ride or dies” gone, Rothman was struggling through both physical and mental hurdles with regards to her health. She found help in an unexpected place. Online communities of people who were also struggling with Lyme disease provided her with a group of people who completely understood the issues she was struggling through and due to that level of understanding became her good friends. Rothman states, ”As for the second part of the saying about chronic illness — that it turns strangers into friends — that one took me a little longer to figure out, but it’s no less true. For many months after becoming sick, I was resistant to my illness, each day thinking that I might just wake up from the extended nightmare and magically be back to my healthy, normal self. I refused to think of myself as “chronically ill,” and avoided Lyme communities like the plague. But eventually, as the magnitude of my illness made itself clear, I joined the Facebook groups and also found many Lyme sufferers on Instagram. Although I haven’t met most of these people in real life, I’ve connected with a few here in the New York area, which has been a wonderful experience; they’ve become my clan,” (Rothman). These online communities can build lasting friendships that provide the understanding and support those without the ailment simply cannot, for example, why ask a chronically sick person if the condition has gotten any better when for the most part chances are the same answer will be repeated like “not much” or “even worse”, which tasks a mental toll on the person (Rothman).
All over the world there are people who live in remote places or in impoverished regions or villages, and they sometimes have to use alternative forms of medicines. Because of the state of these places, the amazing Western medicine that we in the United States have grown accustomed to, is not always accessible. These alternative medicines, however, have their own merits as they have been in existence for a while. While some dispute the ethics or effectiveness of these medicines, alternative healing has worked for many with a strong community of believers. With the ease of transfer of information that the internet and social networks offer us, alternative and traditional medicines have made a serious comeback and are now not exclusively used in their place or region of discovery. Some common alternative medicines include cupping, acupuncture, massages, saunas, spa, traditional chinese medicine (TCM), even chiropractic medicine, and many more. According to TIME Magazine, nearly a third of people who suffer from cancer use some form of alternative medicine. According to Jamie Ducharme, About a third of cancer patients use alternative medicine — but many of them don’t tell their doctors, according to a new research letter published in JAMA Oncology,” (Ducharme). This can pose to be an issue however as many take herbal supplements which are antioxidant rich that can interfere with chemotherapy treatments, however, other forms of these medicines greatly improve the mental health of cancer patients. According to Ducharme, “Some alternative therapies, however, are widely recommended by oncologists. Mind-body interventions like yoga, tai chi, meditation and mindfulness, which were each used by about 7% of patients, can keep people fit and energetic as they undergo treatment, reduce the side effects of traditional therapies and improve patients’ sleep, stress and mental health. Many hospitals even have alternative medicine centers that offer these programs,” (Ducharme). Even the movement for accessible medical marijuana has been accelerated by various social media platform campaigning.
Social media has definitely helped escalate the movement to legalize the use of marijuana both recreational and medical. The reason for marijuana’s illegality has been tried to be debunked by many to be associated with big business and money reasons, with claims that weed products would put many other industries out of business and could replace a multitude of drugs in treating many conditions. Social media has become a platform on which people have been sharing their opinions on the issue and educating the public on the benefits marijuana has to offer. By using social media to campaign and protests weed is becoming much more legal across the United States, while still on a state (not federal) level. Shared by multiple news sources, there have been several accounts of people moving from state to state in order to acquire medical marijuana. Parents of children suffering from diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and several other motor diseases or those causing seizures, are desperate to get to another state where marijuana could take over for many drugs. According to Marisol Bello of USA Today, “Greta Botker has been through more adversity in her short life than most adults. At the age of 7, she’s sampled a host of medications for her epilepsy: Onfi, Depakote, Felbatol, Keppra and Prednisone. She’s been on strict diets. She’s had brain surgery. Nothing reduced the 15 or so seizures she had every day since she was 5 months old that kept her from walking steadily, feeding herself or talking. Her parents, Maria and Mark, had run out of options. Maria and Greta joined a migration of parents who, after trying countless methods to ease their children’s crippling seizures, are packing up their families and moving to Colorado. How times have changed The state has become a refuge for those families for two reasons: Colorado has the most liberal laws for use of marijuana, and it has opened a market for a strain called Charlotte’s Web that is believed to be effective for people with severe epilepsy,” (Bello). Marijuana effectively would replace all of the drugs to be a virtually side effect free seizure relief medication. There have been videos circulating Facebook depicting an elderly man with Parkinson’s finally at ease and relaxed after consuming CBD oil. These cases made public by social media helped lead the public to increase efforts to legalize this powerful and stigmatized medicine.
Cupping is a popular method of alternative medicine among athletes. In the recent Olympic Games, athletes from all over the world have started to use the cupping method. Cupping involves putting heat inside of cups and latching them on to the body which leaves bruise looking marks. Posts of athletes upholding cupping were all over social media as well as pictures of the purple circles covering the athletes as they were competing or accepting awards. According to WebMD, “Cupping therapy might be trendy now, but it’s not new. It dates back to ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern cultures. One of the oldest medical textbooks in the world, the Ebers Papyrus, describes how the ancient Egyptians used cupping therapy in 1,550 B.C.” While there is no conclusive scientific evidence about it, athletes like well-known Michael Phelps swears by it. The craze lead to Buzzfeed creating one of their famous, or rather infamous, video of people trying something with cupping in question. With traditional practitioners and athletes on board, scientists, however, have trouble with agreeing with the medicine as nothing more than placebo. According to Berkeley Wellness, “If you watched the Summer Olympics in Rio this past August, you undoubtedly saw quite a few high-profile athletes—most famously Michael Phelps—sporting large purple circles on their backs, shoulders, and other body parts, the result of “cupping.” We have since received inquiries from readers asking if this treatment really has healing power and improves sports performance. Obviously some Olympians (and many other people) think it does—but the evidence behind it is dubious.”
According to United States Department of Health and Human Services, “TCM practitioners use herbal medicines and various mind and body practices, such as acupuncture and tai chi, to treat or prevent health problems. In the United States, people use TCM primarily as a complementary health approach.” Many of the alternative and complementary medicines pose no scientific evidence but are now used much more often with claims of serious benefits. It is extremely beneficial for people to use these medicines to help supplement their usual routine and get around their diseases and symptoms.
There are more benefits to this new concept of the instant transfer of information via the internet that are commonly aware by the public in the medical field. WebMD is a platform on the internet which is full of much information on health. According to WebMD, “WebMD provides valuable health information, tools for managing your health, and support to those who seek information. You can trust that our content is timely and credible.” The website if full of articles of news in health as well as on descriptions of specific diseases, conditions, and medicines all classified with symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and cures. The staff works with hundreds of doctors as well many medical editors to ensure the information is as accurate, current, and helpful as possible as well as user friendly. They even have a healthy living section, which is made for giving general advice on lifestyles and diets. WebMD enables people to instantly search their symptoms, have general idea of what they might have, and take steps to solve their issue. They might go and buy a certain medicine at the pharmacy or stop or start eating a certain food without the need for a doctor’s recommendation. People might realize they have something serious seek medical attention as soon as possible, or they realize it is not much to worry about so they follow the directions. WebMD, and like websites like the Mayo Clinic, provide for more quick diagnosis and help for the medical issues of most people minimizing the amount of doctor’s visits as well as a lot of money. Healthcare in the United States is extremely expensive, so usually we try to solve problems on our won when we can, WebMD proves to be a powerful tool for more accuracy and effective cures one can come across on their own.
Bello, Marisol. “Parents Move to Colorado for ‘Miracle’ Pot for Children.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 18 Feb. 2014, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/17/moving-medical-marijuana-epilepsy-children/5255323/.
Carlotti, Paige. “What Is Cupping Therapy, and Does It Really Work?” Men’s Health, Men’s Health, 25 Feb. 2019, www.menshealth.com/health/a19519212/what-is-cupping-therapy/.
Clark, Bryan. “Study Reveals Reddit Isn’t as Big a Cesspool as You Thought. But It’s Still a Cesspool.” The Next Web, The Next Web, 20 Mar. 2018, thenextweb.com/insider/2018/03/20/study-reveals-reddit-isnt-as-big-a-cesspool-as-you-thought-but-its-still-a-cesspool/#.
“Cupping: Evidence for Health Benefits Falls Short.” @Berkeleywellness, BerkeleyWellness, www.berkeleywellness.com/fitness/injury-prevention/article/cupping-craze-long-history-short-science.
Ducharme, Jamie. “A Third of People With Cancer Use Alternative Medicine.” Time, Time, 12 Apr. 2019, time.com/5569384/alternative-therapies-cancer/.
Lagorio-Chafkin. “Reddit Was Such a Cesspool in Its Early Days, Its Employees Had to Deal with Everything from Pictures of Genitals to Photos of Corpses on a Regular Basis.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 11 Dec. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/reddit-moderators-jobs-and-the-early-days-of-reddit-2018-10.
Rothman, Lauren. “How My Chronic Illness Showed Me Who My Real Friends Are.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 7 Apr. 2019, www.huffpost.com/entry/chronic-illness-friendships_n_5c9bc47de4b07c88662fa379.