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The propagation of social media carries important ethical ramifications for communication norms, democracy, societal wellbeing, and individual mental health. These issues fall within the professional purview of social work. The purpose of this national survey study (N = 430) was to describe social media use, attitudes, and knowledge among social work students across the United States. To achieve this stated purpose, the authors obtained IRB Human Subjects approval and contacted undergraduate and graduate social work program directors at the identified 150 institutions using a random, stratified sampling method. A 66-item Qualtrics survey on social media use, attitudes, and knowledge was subsequently sent to program directors, who in turn administered the link to enrolled social work students. Overall, findings reveal that social work students seemingly hold conflicting attitudes toward social media that are also at times contrary to their self-reported knowledge and use of social media, and that have potential implications for the social work profession. The authors discuss social media's ethical implications for the social work profession, supporting the position that information about social media should be included in social work curricula and making suggestions to this end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media marketing constantly evolves, and teaching in this dynamic discipline can be challenging. This commentary provides a brief overview of the emergence and evolution of social media marketing in the curriculum. We address emerging best practices in teaching, such as educators cultivating industry relationships and using certifications in the curriculum. We discuss the emerging trend of using stackable certificates. We conclude with a brief review of the emphasis the marketing education journals have placed on integrating technology. We posit that with the newest technology, students need to be taught how to use due to the benefits but understand the potential risks associated with these new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has a very important role in adolescents' daily life, providing them with means for communicating, sharing, representing themselves and creating and maintaining relationships. However, social media can hide risks for the users which can undermine their mental well-being, especially amongst adolescents. The exploratory research presented in this paper aims at highlighting the relationships between the conscious use of social media by adolescents and their psychological well-being. In particular, we present a pilot study involving N = 80 adolescents (age 16–20), which was designed to analyse the constructs of mental well-being, life satisfaction and resilience in relation to the capacity of adolescents to use social media. Adolescents were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group attended a social media literacy course aimed at raising participants' awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of social media. The Mann–Whitney U test has been used to assess statistically significant differences between the two groups with respect to the age and the constructs under investigation. However, the test reported no statistically significant values (p > 0.05). We argue that statistically significant differences could be observed by involving a larger sample size. This seems to be confirmed by the low value of the power of the a posteriori test for all the variables considered. In this sense, our pilot study paves the way for new research aimed at investigating the impact of Social Media Literacy on adolescents' psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media provides athletes with many opportunities as well as challenges. Scholars have argued for proactive, educational social media training instead of traditional policy and punishment models, yet research on this topic is limited. Therefore, this study sought to understand the social media training/education national governing bodies (NGBs) provided to athletes ranging from Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to Olympic level, and to examine NGB communication employees' perceptions regarding athletes' social media use and their organization's social media training. Utilizing uses and gratifications theory, a sequential mixed method was employed involving a survey of U.S. NGBs and in-depth interviews with NGB communication personnel. While most NGBs used proactive, educational social media training for Olympic athletes, few did the same for YOG athletes. NGB employees felt social media use posed significant benefits or gratifications to athletes, and education and training helped to enhance those benefits as well as minimize the challenges, or failed gratifications, athletes experience on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Nowadays because of some necessities and demands for virtual and remote education, a new model of health approach through mobile-phones is widely used to deal with improving physical activity and its beneficial effect on pregnancy. There are a small number of studies for showing this importance and the efficacy of such methods, so this study was aimed to determine the influence of social networking through mobile phones on changing the physical activity behavior in pregnant women. Methods This randomized controlled trial was conducted with parallel groups on 90 pregnant women referring to Urmia health centers in 2018–2019. The participants from various social and economic backgrounds were included. The participants were randomly assigned to a control and a treatment group. Demographic and Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) questionnaires were filled. In addition to routine cares, the treatment group received educational intervention through social network within 16 training sessions related to physical activity and nutrition in 8 weeks. Results The mean weight in both control and treatment groups changed significantly during the study, but in different trends (P

The purpose of the study was to explore the uses and gratification of social media among first-year student groups at a satellite campus of a public university in Ghana. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The study involved all 1061 first-year university students in six academic departments of the College. A total of 680 (64%) participants returned validly completed copies of the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were employed for data analysis. The findings indicate that WhatsApp was the most popular application for social media groups, while a need for information-sharing, peer-tutoring and learning, and finding and keeping friends were the primary motivations for joining social media groups. First-year students are involved mainly in reactive activities, as most engage when solving an academic assignment through group discussions. Though challenges persist, such as posting of unwanted images, inadequate participation, and ineffective and irrelevant communication, most are willing to continue their social media groups' membership in the long term. This study provides valuable insight into transitioning students' lived experiences on social media from the group perspective. These insights are valuable conceptually and practically to academic counsellors, librarians and student affairs officers who are expected to provide on-going education on (social) media literacy to first-year students to enhance the adjustment process. The study is the first of its kind in Ghana that investigates social media group participants' exit intentions.

Background: Nowadays because of some necessities and demands for virtual and remote education, a new model of health approach through mobile-phones is widely used to deal with improving physical activity and its beneficial effect on pregnancy. There are a small number of studies for showing this importance and the efficacy of such methods, so this study was aimed to determine the influence of social networking through mobile phones on changing the physical activity behavior in pregnant women.Methods: This randomized controlled trial was conducted with parallel groups on 90 pregnant women referring to Urmia health centers in 2018-2019. The participants from various social and economic backgrounds were included. The participants were randomly assigned to a control and a treatment group. Demographic and Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) questionnaires were filled. In addition to routine cares, the treatment group received educational intervention through social network within 16 training sessions related to physical activity and nutrition in 8 weeks.Results: The mean weight in both control and treatment groups changed significantly during the study, but in different trends (P < 0.001, Mean Difference (MD) = 4.43). At the beginning of the study, control and treatment groups were not different in terms of daily physical activity level (P = 0.17, MD = 0.62), meanwhile, there was a statistically significant difference at the end of intervention in the level of daily physical activity (P < 0.001, MD = 0.69). Comparison of both groups, based on different categories of activity level at the end of the treatment, showed a non-significant difference in sedentary activities (P = 0.89, MD = 0.46), but the intervention led to a significant difference based on the other level of activities; light (P < 0.001, MD = 51.94), moderate (P < 0.001, MD = 46.87), and sever (P = 0.05, MD = 1.07).Conclusion: Educational intervention based on social networks through mobile phones had an effective role in behavior change in physical activity during pregnancy.Trial Registration: IRCT20151004024340N15, Registration date05/06/2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to explore the uses and gratification of social media among first-year student groups at a satellite campus of a public university in Ghana. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The study involved all 1061 first-year university students in six academic departments of the College. A total of 680 (64%) participants returned validly completed copies of the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were employed for data analysis. The findings indicate that WhatsApp was the most popular application for social media groups, while a need for information-sharing, peer-tutoring and learning, and finding and keeping friends were the primary motivations for joining social media groups. First-year students are involved mainly in reactive activities, as most engage when solving an academic assignment through group discussions. Though challenges persist, such as posting of unwanted images, inadequate participation, and ineffective and irrelevant communication, most are willing to continue their social media groups' membership in the long term. This study provides valuable insight into transitioning students' lived experiences on social media from the group perspective. These insights are valuable conceptually and practically to academic counsellors, librarians and student affairs officers who are expected to provide on-going education on (social) media literacy to first-year students to enhance the adjustment process. The study is the first of its kind in Ghana that investigates social media group participants' exit intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background TikTok is among the most popular social media sites, and its utilization for health information is growing each day. The present study assesses the popularity and quality of the top 100 most-liked videos on TikTok tagged with "#ichthyosis." This study aims to do so by assessing contributions from physician, and nonphysician sources (such as from patients) to guide healthcare professionals interested in leveraging this platform for public health.  Methodology A cross-sectional analysis of the top 100 most-liked videos tagged with "#ichythosis" on TikTok as of January 3, 2024, was conducted. The parameters assessed for this study include observable characteristics, content type, and whether the creator was a physician or nonphysician. The quality of the content was measured using the DISCERN scale.  Results Based on these results, 14 of the top 100 videos were posted by physicians with 1,912,975 as the mean number of views. There were 86 videos posted by nonphysician creators averaging 2,675,341 views. Videos posted by nonphysician creators had a higher average number of views, number of likes, and number of comments but less average saves. Videos made by physicians and educational content had the highest average DISCERN scores, whereas nonphysician, awareness, and personal experience content had the lowest average DISCERN scores.  Conclusions Physicians are deemed trustworthy, reliable sources of healthcare-related information on TikTok. This study emphasizes the importance of physicians continuing to provide reliable, evidence-based health information on social media platforms such as TikTok., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2024, Wojtara et al.)

This study aims to explore the most common misinformation topics about COVID-19, people's perceptions concerning disinformation, and its consequences. A purposive sample of 50 posts and thousands of comments on coronavirus was drawn from social media networking sites. The data were also collected through informal interviews of 30 participants of different demographic backgrounds. The selected data were analyzed as dialogic communicative content between the participants. The study reveals that the most common topics regarding coronavirus misinformation are about cure and conspiracy theories. The participants have shown a mixed response towards the misinformation. The study has concluded the severe consequences of misinformation concerning the virus. Hence, I would like to recommend compulsory social media education for the internet users regarding how to respond to such a crisis while Abiding by the Internet regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research focused on social media and student-athletes, there is a lack of knowledge about positive functions of social media use for student-athletes, especially personal branding purposes. Thus, this study aimed to explore how student-athletes perceive and use social media for personal branding purposes. A total of 11 student-athletes at a Division I university participated in semi-structured interviews. Considering the exploratory nature of the study, a qualitative inquiry and a phenomenology approach were employed to grasp an overall understanding of student-athletes' personal branding via social media. The self-presentation theory was adopted to help understand student-athletes' use of social media. Emerging themes included benefits and barriers of social media use, social media strategies, and concerns about negative consequences of social media. Findings from this study shed light on the importance of increasing awareness and knowledge of the concept of personal branding via social media for student-athletes. These findings also call for more effective social media training or education programs that can foster student-athletes' positive attitudes toward social media use for personal branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background With TikTok's rising popularity as a hub for health information dissemination, the quality and nature of such content require assessment. This study investigates the popularity and quality of the top 100 most-liked videos tagged with "#acne" on TikTok. This study aims to examine the engagement and quality of acne-related content on TikTok, assess contributions from diverse sources, including physicians and non-physicians, and guide healthcare professionals in leveraging this platform for public health education. Methodology A cross-sectional analysis of the top 100 most-liked videos tagged with "#acne" on TikTok as of June 7, 2023, was conducted. Parameters assessed included the profession of the creator, gender, specialty, content type, and other observable characteristics. The quality was measured using the DISCERN tool. Results Of the dataset, 38 videos were by physicians and 29 by non-physicians. Physician-created content had higher mean views, likes, comments, shares, and favorites than non-physician-created content. Videos by dermatologists and non-dermatologists received similar engagement. Videos sharing personal experiences achieved the highest DISCERN score. Overall, DISCERN scores were uniformly low across all categories. Conclusions Physicians, especially dermatologists, are trusted sources of acne-related information on TikTok. The study underscores the need for professionals to provide reliable, evidence-based information on such platforms, guiding effective health communication in the digital age., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2023, Irfan et al.)

We examined social media marketing knowledge of two groups of internet users: college students in the United States, who had taken an introductory marketing course, and marketing professionals working in the field. Our findings suggest that while both students and professionals are confident regarding their social media knowledge, the students do not understand the key elements of executing strategy in the field. The findings suggest a disconnect between what students think they know and what students need to learn before starting their careers in social media marketing. Faculty can be more effectively armed with the awareness that students suffer from overconfidence in their knowledge, and instruction must emphasize the key strategic elements of social media marketing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of recent higher education contracting because of a declining birth rate and an explosive forming of technology, this research systematically cross-employed a technology acceptance model (TAM) and rational decision-making model (RDM) methodology to discuss from an interdisciplinary perspective the co-relationships between the assessed criteria and evaluated weights of four famous and accredited World University Rankings, the most promising features of massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of university social responsibility (USR) principles based on students', faculties' and government officers' interviewee appraised perspectives. Statistically, the weight-questionnaires of random students and professional experts were cross-measured by a factor analysis (FA) of quantitative analysis and an analytical network process (ANP) method of qualitative analysis. As a result, the aggregation technology function (ATF) is the most sustainable niche principle of social media education, not only fulfilling the Making Education More Equitable (MEME), Diminishing Poverty (DP), and Making Gender More Equality (MGME) initiatives of the institution's USR principles but also increasing the Industry Income (II) of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings in order to attract, trigger, and drive the students to make a decision to sincerely register in institutions in a higher education contracting era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]