I began a recent speech at a medical school with a question that many busy clinicians might be asking: How do we know that social media is important to health care?
An estimate of how many people go online to seek a doctor’s opinion about something, such as on an “ask a doctor” site (hint: a fraction of a subgroup).
69% of U.S. adults track a health indicator like weight, diet, exercise routine, or symptom. Of those, half track in their heads, one-third keep notes on paper, and one in five use technology to keep tabs on their health status.
Stephen Wolfram predicts that we will all self-track some day, but a Pew Internet survey suggests we have a long way to go. Just 1 in 4 internet users track health data online.