Social Media Usage among Dental Undergraduate Students-A Comparative Study.

Eswara Uma,Pentti Nieminen,Emilia Haapanen,Marja-Liisa Laitala,Jacob John,Eby Varghase,Shani Ann Mani,Kanwardeep Kaur,Ankita Arora,Olli-Pekka Lappalainen

doi:10.3390/healthcare9111408

Abstract

Social media use among students has infiltrated into dental education and offers benefits but may also cause problems. The aim of this study was to explore and compare current social media usage among dental undergraduate students from two countries—Malaysia and Finland. A self-administered structured online questionnaire was used. WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat were the services that were most familiar to the respondents from both countries. There were differences between the students from the two countries among the most preferred platforms. The most frequently used applications were WhatsApp (91.1% of students in Malaysia and 96.1% in Finland used it very frequently) and Instagram (74.3% of students in Malaysia and 70.0% in Finland used it very frequently). Students in Malaysia spent significantly more hours per week using the platforms as study tools than students in Finland. Over 80% of the Finnish dental students reported that lack of knowledge was not an issue in social media usage, while 85% of Malaysian students felt that lack of knowledge prevented them from using social media platforms frequently. The findings offer evidence that dental students used social media extensively.

Highlights

In today’s digital world, most people are logged in perpetually and always connected
This was a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey conducted among dental undergraduates of the academic year 2020–2021 from two dental schools in Malaysia (Manipal Melaka Medical College and University of Malaya) and Finland
The Malaysian students were younger than the Finnish dental students

Summary

Introduction

In today’s digital world, most people are logged in perpetually and always connected. Social media is defined as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.”. Social media includes social networking platforms including Facebook and Twitter and media sharing sites, for example, YouTube and Instagram. Social media platforms offer different approaches to content sharing, and this has wide-ranging uses in dentistry. Social media is useful for education and networking, and for marketing and recruitment. Studies in health professionals’ education have found benefits in the use of social media tools in clinical education [3]. Social media has become pervasive in society and is playing an important role in the personal and professional lives with dentistry being no exception

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