Op/ed: How Social Media Can Be Good for Our Health

In parents’ groups, at the water cooler, in the news—even on social media itself—American public discourse is awash in research-validated concerns about the harm social media can wreak on the nation’s psyche. The fear is especially acute concerning children’s mental health, and even the modern-day tycoons behind some of the most popular platforms reportedly limit their own children's use of them.

In a new essay in The Baltimore Sun, a group of researchers from the University of Maryland School of Public Health—Associate Professors of epidemiology and biostatistics Thu Nguyen and Yulin Hswen, who also holds an appointment in the University of Maryland Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute (AIM), and analyst Penchala Sai Priya Mullaputi—acknowledge the risks but point out how social media can provide avenues to benefit mental health as well.

If we ask the right questions, social media might also hold the key to a huge amount of crucial public health data.

For public health researchers, social media offers something that would have been difficult to imagine a generation ago: a continuously evolving window into what people are experiencing, discussing and responding to.

Read the rest in The Baltimore Sun.