Instagram as a tool for study engagement and community building among adolescents: A social media pilot study

Abstract

Objective: Social media has been recognized as a promising tool for delivering health interventions and facilitating study recruitment. However, research is needed to understand how social media might be used to enhance the experiences of adolescent participants in ongoing studies. In a prospective cohort study addressing social and structural influences on health trajectories among 599 adolescents in a California agricultural community, we evaluated the effectiveness of and engagement with a human-centered, Instagram-based outreach campaign, with a focus on study retention, enhancement of participants' experiences, and increasing community awareness of the study.Methods: We adopted a youth-centered approach to design a three-month pilot study, which included participatory design sessions, a geo-targeted Instagram campaign, and in-person events at schools. We conducted pre-/post-pilot surveys with study participants, analyzed social media metrics, and collected process measures, such as study visit show rates.Results: After three months, the study Instagram account had 209 followers and 806 total engagements. Survey responses showed little change in study participants' attitudes about the study; most survey respondents agreed that the study is very important for the community (54% pre-pilot and 52% post-pilot). However, the study's Instagram account appeared to influence study participation, with 43% of post-pilot respondents who use Instagram (n¼65 of 153) indicating that the Instagram account influenced their decision to continue coming to study visits.Conclusion: Despite little change in the participants' attitudes about the study, the findings of this pilot study suggest that Instagram is a promising tool to support engagement of adolescent participants in ongoing research, particularly if the content is designed with adolescents as partners. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of an Instagram outreach campaign to support retention, this paper also presents suggestions and insights for creating similar social media interventions targeting youth.

Understanding the Power of Social Media during COVID-19: Forming Social Norms for Drinking among Sexual Minority Gender Expansive College Women

“…Concept mapping was used for the present study (Thomas et al, 2020;Wheeldon & Faubert, 2009). Concept mapping provides a structured method to analyze qualitative data on a novel, understudied concept or phenomenon with the goal of generating themes, determining relationships between themes, and arriving at a pictorial map of the concept under investigation.…”

“…Authors 1, 2 and 3 had previous experience with researching sexual minority women, alcohol use, and social media, while authors 4, 5 and 6 had personal experience with negotiating college culture related to social media and alcohol use. Given the use of human centered design, the data collected in the focus groups were open-ended in nature and the major themes were identified by the participants themselves thereby reducing bias by the research team in data analysis (Giacomin, 2015;Thomas, Chavez, Browne, & Minnis, 2020). Additionally, memos were recorded by each research team member during the focus groups and maintained throughout data analysis.…”

A Social Media Analytics Framework to Increase Prospective Students’ Interests in STEM and TVET Education

“…Three main social media are selected as the main platform to build awareness and share content with the audiences. The reason why Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are chosen is that: 1) all of these social media have many users; 2) the majority of the prospective students (teenagers and young adults) use these social media; and 3) these social media platforms provide insight functions that can be used for data analytics (Busalim et al, 2019;Curlin et al, 2019;Ghani et al, 2019;Irfan et al, 2017;Katal et al, 2013;Nalwoga Lutu, 2019;Schaffer & Debb, 2020;Shaikh et al, 2018;Stieglitz et al, 2018;Thomas et al, 2020;Yanai et al, 2019). Different types of content will be used including news, information, activities and updates in the format of texts, images, audios and videos to increase the awareness of prospective students of the benefits of STEM and TVET subjects.…”

“…Instagram is also one of the most popular social media platforms where more than 72% of the users are between 13 years old to 17 years old (Thomas, Chavez, Browne, & Minnis, 2020). A huge increase in the number of users (approximately 150 million) was identified in 2015 compared to in 2010 (Schaffer & Debb, 2020).…”

Engagement y evolución de instagramers hispanohablantes de moda

“…Adicionalmente, las formas de consumo cambiaron de un modelo de práctica y comportamiento analógico a uno digital, transformando las actitudes de los usuarios. Un mundo 2.0 con demandas cada vez más heterogéneas, y ante las cuales los creadores de contenidos particulares e industriales deben responder con agilidad(Hung et al, 2019).En este contexto, Instagram se posiciona como la plataforma digital con mayor potencial visual y capacidad de transmisión de mensajes a través de la imagen(Thomas et al, 2020). Desde su creación en 2010, acumula millones de adeptos alrededor del mundo, convirtiéndose en uno de los canales de interacción, promoción y difusión más representativos de la esfera digital Lee et al (2015).…”