Challenge 3: Social Media Search
One of the most profound inventions created this generation has been the development of social media. Social media allows people to connect on various levels with people all over the world. With these connections the ability to share information is the highest it has ever been. With these week’s assignment we were tasked with searching through social media to find information on our topics. Through the weeks I have narrowed my search from Healthcare to just Mental Health. Lucky for me this week is Mental Health Awareness week and I was able to find many incredible stories and articles about mental health using #mentalhealthweek2015
The first social media site I used was Twitter. On twitter I searched for #mentalhealth with then lead me to the hashtag #mentalhealthweek2015. Using that hashtag it drew me to the most recent posters that were discussing mental health week. Some of the recent posters included celebrities, politicians, athletes, and various doctors. Through the assortment of posters many people were posting personal stories about themselves or others close to them who had suffered mental health problems. Searching through the posts I was able to find a couple dedicated mental health twitter accounts such as @TheWAAMH (The Western Australian Association for Mental Health) who’s tweets were dedicated to tweeting information on workshops and tips associated with getting help mentally.
After searching through twitter I decided to use the same hashtag in Instagram. Since Instagram is more focused on pictures I was not really sure what to expect would come up. Once I did my search I found various people who had suffered from either anorexia or bulimia posting before and after pictures. The users who posted these pictures then had captions insisting that anyone who believes they have a self image problem to seek help because if they can recover from their disorder then so can anyone else. Other pictures associated with the hashtag were usually motivational pictures with captions either telling a personal story or telling people to make sure they seek help with anything if they believe they have a problem.
After searching through Twitter and Instagram I found that using the hashtag #mentalhealthawareness2015 provided an abundance of personal stories and calls to action from regular users and from people who work in mental health. Well that concludes my blog for this week!
