I am sure at one point or another, we have all searched our symptoms on Google. I first discovered Google’s wildly inaccurate symptom checker when I was a teenager. I googled the symptoms of a cold (e.g. runny nose, sneezing etc.) simply to see what I came back with, and got ‘diagnosed’ by Dr Google with a possible brain tumour. You can imagine my surprise.
Today, I am smart enough to know never to use Dr Google again. However, this doesn’t mean that I am not fed with other digital health issues and initiatives every day through my social media feeds.
Digital health is “any application of information and communication technologies in order to improve healthcare and health outcomes” (Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cwlth).
Thankfully, the digital health campaigns that have been most memorable across my social media are all good and helpful (and accurate!) public health campaigns. In one of my previous blogs, I mentioned the Shameless Podcast’s #IPledge campaign. I am mentioning this again because it is not only a fabulous, informative and genuine initiative but is something I have wholeheartedly related to, and has made me reflect on my own everyday actions. This campaign was initiated due to the fact that melanoma is the most common cancer amongst Aussies aged between 15 and 39 (Melanoma Institute of Australia 2019). The Shameless Podcast (2020) explains the campaign as the following:
“In 2020, we pledge. To wear sunscreen every single day, to get our skin checked when something doesn’t feel right, and to push against the glamorisation of sun tanning online. We pledge to call this as we see it, and educate ourselves and others about the risks of being unsafe in the sun.”
(Shameless Podcast 2020)
I will completely admit as a very fair and pale 21-year-old woman, I baked myself in the sun every day to achieve that ‘bronzed-glow’ throughout summer. I didn’t mind if I burnt a little because ‘it would become tan eventually’ and that was more important. Since seeing this campaign across my screen multiple times throughout summer, I changed my behaviour and my attitude. I stopped purposely laying in the sun just ‘to tan’, I applied my sunscreen before going to the beach (not an hour after being there), and I now also push back on the glamorisation of tanning.
Keiles (2015) says “The Instagram economy trades heavily in FOMO and YOLO”, and I couldn’t agree with a statement more. That is why I so regularly come back to the #IPledge campaign. This campaign is about pushing back on a standard that I had been living up to ever since I was 14. I didn’t want to be the pale one amongst my tanned friends, or that having that tanned-glow was more attractive, or most importantly, I didn’t want to miss out on what seemed to be the better, more attractive appearance.
The #IPledge campaign battles against beauty standards I have grown up with and the Shameless Podcast is using their platform to improve health care and health outcomes for their listeners and followers in a way that is actually making a real, positive difference.
Freeman et al. (2015) highlight how “Strong evidence indicates that public health social marketing campaigns conducted through mainstream media can have a direct and positive effect on behaviour” (p.2) and as someone who was directly affected by the #IPledge campaign, I can say I absolutely agree.
So, let’s say goodbye to the days of Dr Google, and hello to more positive, accurate and great public health campaigns.
References
Freeman, B, McIver, J, Potente, S, and Rock, V 2015, ‘Social media campaigns that make a difference: what can public health learn from the corporate sector and other social change marketers’, Public Health Research & Practice, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 1-8.
Keiles, J 2015, Depressiongrams, The Message, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://medium.com/message/depressiongrams-7f22011d6113>.
Melanoma Institute of Australia 2019, Melanoma Facts and Statistics, Melanoma Institute of Australia, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://www.melanoma.org.au/understanding-melanoma/melanoma-facts-and-statistics/>.
Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cwlth), Federal Register of Legislation, s.87, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2016L00070/Explanatory%20Statement/Text>.
Shameless Podcast 2020, #IPledge, 1 January, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/B6wSzsNAOfb/>.