Social networking sites can empower consumers to make informed decisions and improve quality of life

Can social networking sites help people make wise health decisions? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says it depend on people's willingness to take action on the information they gain from the sites.

Using social networking sites to obtain health information and advice is controversial. Critics say the sites can confuse, give inaccurate information, or prevent people from seeking professional advice. They doubt consumers can carry the burden of complex medical decisions, and worry that social networks can actually harm na-ve consumers by encouraging them to engage in self-diagnosis and self-treatment.

Authors Rama K. Jayanti (Cleveland State University) and Jagdip Singh (Case Western Reserve University) closely monitored use of an Electronic Bulletin Board dedicated to thyroid disease and treatment over the course of ten months. Based on random selection, they analyzed six threads representing 392 distinct postings with 7,825 text lines by 80 unique individuals. They sought to determine if consumers can learn from these sites, how they learn, and how the learning empowers them.