The Good, The Bad and the Ugly about Social Networks for Health Apps

Author

Gay, Valerie ; Leijdekkers, Peter

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng. & Inf. Technol., Univ. of Technol., Sydney, NSW, Australia

fYear

2011

fDate

24-26 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

463

Lastpage

468

Abstract

Mobile devices are blending into our lives and change the way we manage our social life but also how we look after our health. Hundreds of health apps are available for mobile devices and many use social network functionalities that allow users to exchange personal experiences and discuss their health with others. This has many positive results but also negative side effects. This paper discusses the good, the bad and the ugly about social network integration with mobile health applications. It is based on a comprehensive review of literature, social networking health forums, surveys, and our own experience with health apps for mobile devices.

Keywords

medical information systems; mobile computing; mobile handsets; social aspects of automation; social networking (online); health apps; mobile devices; mobile health applications; social network integration; social networking health forums; Communities; Facebook; Medical services; Mobile communication; Mobile computing; Twitter; Health and fitness apps; Social Network Implications; mobile health;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC), 2011 IFIP 9th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Melbourne, VIC

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1822-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EUC.2011.69

Filename

6104569