Background: Social media networks offer a straight forward way to converse among people and sustain relationships among them. The use of Internet for Web-based medical education is still lacking in the current scenario.
Objective: The purpose of the study was to examine the usage of social media among college students, that is, how they use it for their medical education and how it affects their communication with others and their self-concept.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 200 undergraduate medical students, in a tertiary care teaching hospital, Tamil Nadu. A self-administered questionnaire designed for the study was distributed among the students.
Results: Of the 200 students, nearly 84 (42%) students have started on social networking site during their I MBBS. Regarding the average time spent on social networking sites, 143 (71.5%) students spend more than 2 h and share social issues, personal issues, share jokes, etc. One hundred thirty (65%) students have installed medical apps, while 70 (35%) students have not installed any medical apps. The frequently accessed sites include Medscape, PGMED, USMLE, and others. Thus, this study highlighted the importance of utilizing the social media for the education and training.
Conclusion: The geographical scope of the study was limited to a single teaching-based center. Responses of the respondents are biased and so they may not reveal the true state in some conditions. Social network is a vast subject and hence, there is lack of in-depth analysis in this study.
Key words: Awareness, assessment, social networking, students, medical education
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