Nursing Students Meets Social Media

In my recent post I touched on the point of mostly how social networking sites such as Facebook and blogs can negatively impact a person from the professional world. Although this topic fascinates me, it fascinates me even more being able to connect this topic to my studies…nursing. How the media not only impacts nurses and nursing students but specifically I can benefit from it? Most nursing students happen to be college students as well and studies show site such as “Facebook is used by about 85 to 96 percent of college students according to previous studies conducted” (Labrigue, 2014).

It was  a lot easier to identify ways in which social media can affect nurses and nursing students in a negative manner; but I want to find out the many ways I as a nursing student can make good use of the social media. Even Even as a nursing student now we have already been warned about the potential dangers of the media along with the impacts of comments and post. As we get deeper into the nursing profession one of the possible dangers I will later on deal with is confidentiality and privacy rules. I wonder if there is such a thing as using patient privacy and confidentiality on a social network for a positive use, more specifically without any harm or consequences. According to Drake and Leander from the National council of State board of Nursing: ” most of today’s nursing students are experienced consumers of popular social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.” Therefore my last question would be besides Facebook and blogging how could I make good use of YouTube.

Sources: Health Science Journal; A Nurse’s Guide to the Use of Social Media