This week in our social media course we were introduced to the concepts of social network analysis (SNA), a technique used to visualise the ties that are formed between people (i.e. social connections).  The technique has been used in a range of disciplines. Dr Caroline Haythornthwaite presented to our group on her work in the field, based primarily on the relationships that are formed between distance learners.

Here is a cool example of SNA being used to track Obama’s online web connections over time:

How could we use it in health and medicine?

SNA was a completely new approach to me, but I could instantly see how applicable it could be in social media. A lot of people and organisations are starting to use social media in health and medicine, but many of them are asking the questions: ‘how can I understand how it is helping me?’, ‘what return will I get on this investment?’.

We discussed some of the ideas with respect to health and medicine, suggesting how online communities could be mapped to identify connections, and how this could be used in practice. For example, within an online community it might be useful to see who is a legitimate peripheral participator (aka lurker, who may eventually turn into a more active community member), and who are the ‘influencers’ in the group. If we were promoting an online campaign to increase cancer screening, we could try and target those individuals with the most ‘strong connections’ in our network, in the hope that they would endorse our campaign, and spread the message to the most people in the smallest amount of time. As the stronger connections are perceived to involve a level of trust/belief, it is likely that those who are connected to these influencers are more likely to believe in, and potentially adopt, their suggestions.

Other suggestions for the use of SNA is to see the relationships between different ‘types’ of people within a social network.  In traditional healthcare, the doctor is the expert, and the patient defers to them as a knowledgeable power, but it is increasingly being seen in the social media world that ‘e-patients’ often know as much about their disease as their doctors do. Perhaps an SNA will show that there are more strong ties being formed between professionals and patients in the online world than there are in the physical world? This could be useful as patient-centred healthcare evolves.  On you tube there are other examples of how this technique is being used elsewhere. Go explore!

Let’s get physical

Interestingly, it seems that the number of social media connections we have could actually have a physical association.  A recent report suggests that the size of our online social networks is correlated with the size of a specific part of our brain, and that this is distinct from other brain areas that are associated with offline social networks.  The meaning of this finding is yet to be explored, but who knows what it could mean for the development of future social media technologies? It will be exciting to find out!

What next?

It is clear that social media is a new and developing area. As such, there is an incredible amount of research ideas in this area, across a range of disciplines: sociology, neuroscience, psychology, …etc. It will be fascinating to watch as people uncover more new and exciting ideas, particularly as social media develops with more and more sophisticated tools!