Many wellness experts believe that modern teen sexual health problems require a modern solution; social networking. The theory goes, to talk to teenagers about their wellbeing, you have to speak their language – and these days that language involves a lot of YouTube videos and hash tags. However, according to a new study, published in the May issue of Reproductive Health Matters, those who wish to harness the power of Facebook for sex education should proceed with caution.
Because social media sites like Facebook and Twitter use a network of peers, it provides a great platform for sex education. Learning sexual information from peers is often argued to be more effective than learning from adults, and so researchers conducted focus groups with 22 young people, aged 16 to 22, in New South Wales, Australia, in order to better understand the sex education potential of social media.
However, the researchers found that the decisions young people make about the information they share, the comments they make, and the photos they upload are not made lightly, but often carefully considered in relation to an imagined audience. One participant explained, ‘With health information, I think it’s better if it’s anonymous because I don’t think everyone’s really comfortable about talking about that kind of stuff with random [people]… It’s something they want to keep to themselves.’ Another added, ‘It’s, like, you don’t really want that on your wall.’
The focus group explained that young people would be more likely to discuss sexual health issues via personal messaging or conversations among close friends, and the researchers noted that health educators and social media users therefore have conflicting agendas. While educators may want to get across a serious message, social media users are more likely to share and disseminate information that is self-created, adapted or subverted (for example, through parodies).
According to one participant, ‘No one wants to get a lecture while they are online and trying to do their social thing.’ Another suggested, ‘I think you need to have a funny element because if it’s just serious it’s going to scare people off. So I think you need to draw people in using funny and then maybe have like a serious kind of punch line at the end or something.’ However, the study authors warned that as humour is personal and subjective, without careful handling it could encourage stigma or shaming.