Despite the ubiquity of health-related communications via social media, no consensus has emerged on whether this medium, on balance, jeopardizes or promotes public health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been described as the source of a toxic “infodemic” or a valuable tool for public health. No conceptual model exists for examining the roles that social media can play with respect to population health. We present a novel framework to guide the investigation and assessment of the effects of social media on public health: the SPHERE (Social media and Public Health Epidemic and REsponse) continuum. This model illustrates the functions of social media across the epidemic–response continuum, ranging across contagion, vector, surveillance, inoculant, disease control, and treatment. We also describe attributes of the communications, diseases and pathogens, and hosts that influence whether certain functions dominate over others. Finally, we describe a comprehensive set of outcomes relevant to the evaluation of the effects of social media on the public’s health. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print June 18, 2020: e1–e4. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.305746)
Cellphones have the potential to improve education for the millions of underprivileged users in the developing world. However, mobile learning in developing countries remains under-studied. In this paper, we argue that cellphones are a perfect vehicle for making educational opportunities accessible to rural children in places and times that are more convenient than formal schooling. We carried out participant observations to identify the opportunities in their everyday lives for mobile learning. We next conducted a 26-week study to investigate the extent to which rural children will voluntarily make use of cellphones to access educational content. Our results show a reasonable level of academic learning and motivation. We also report on the social context around these results. Our goal is to examine the feasibility of mobile learning in out-of-school settings in rural, underdeveloped areas, and to help more researchers learn how to undertake similarly difficult studies around mobile computing in the developing world.
In this paper we present the results of a field study of Avaaj Otalo (literally, "voice stoop"), an interactive voice application for small-scale farmers in Gujarat, India. Through usage data and interviews, we describe how 51 farmers used the system over a seven month pilot deployment. The most popular feature of Avaaj Otalo was a forum for asking questions and browsing others' questions and responses on a range of agricultural topics. The forum developed into a lively social space with the emergence of norms, persistent moderation, and a desire for both structured interaction with institutionally sanctioned authorities and open discussion with peers. For all 51 users this was the first experience participating in an online community of any sort. In terms of usability, simple menu-based navigation was readily learned, with users preferring numeric input over speech. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for designing voice-based social media serving rural communities in India and elsewhere.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.