Changing Awareness about Health Behavior: A Study among Young Instagram Users
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper examines the usage of social media for changing health behavior among young Instagram users at a Malaysian public university. A qualitative approach was espoused to investigate this phenomenon. Face-to-face interviews were conducted among the selected Instagram users. Then, a thematic analysis was used to categorize the outcomes from social media application in changing awareness on health behavior among the Instagram users. The study is viewed from a social cognitive theory perspective, and the results demonstrate that all the Instagram users originally started changing their health behavior offline. This means the research participants’ actions were initiated external to the digital media society; and their actions were mainly attributed to the self-awareness on unhealthy physical state. Later, with the use of Instagram, the participants were able to gather health knowledge and effectively achieve their goals to lose weight. The role of Instagram identified in this study was mainly to mediate the process for changing health behavior by providing a platform to search and share health information and to engage in social interactions by seeking feedback on health. This research contributes to behavioral science knowledge by revealing the role of Instagram as a mediator that enables health behavioral change among Malaysian university students.
Downloads
Article Details
References
Ahmad Sharoni, S. K., Abdul Rahman, H., Minhat, H. S., Shariff-Ghazali, S., & Azman Ong, M. H. (2018). The effects of self-efficacy enhancing program on foot self-care behaviour of older adults with diabetes: A randomised controlled trial in elderly care facility, Peninsular Malaysia. PLOS ONE, 13(3), e0192417. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0192417
Bandura, A. (1998). Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory. Psychology & Health, 13(4), 623-649. doi:10.1080/08870449808407422
Bandura, A. (2004). Health promotion by social cognitive means. Health Education & Behavior, 31(2), 143-164. doi:10.1177/1090198104263660
Bandura, A. (2009). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (3rd ed., pp. 110-140). New York: Routledge.
Branthwaite, A., & Patterson, S. (2011). The power of qualitative research in the era of social media. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 14(4), 430-440. doi:10.1108/13522751111163245
Cavusoglu, L., & Demirbag-Kaplan, M. (2017). Health commodified, health communified: navigating digital consumptionscapes of well-being. European Journal of Marketing, 51(11/12), 2054-2079. doi:10.1108/EJM-01-2017-0015
Chin, J. H., & Mansori, S. (2018). Social marketing and public health: A literature review. Journal of Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior, 2(2), 48-66.
Clark, J. L., Algoe, S. B., & Green, M. C. (2018). Social network sites and well-being: The role of social connection. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(1), 32-37. doi:10.1177/0963721417730833
Dev, R. D. O., Kamalden, T. F. T., Geok, S. K., Abdullah, M. C., Ayub, A. F. M., & Ismail, I. A. (2018). Emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, self efficacy and health behaviors: Implications for quality health. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(7), 794-809. doi:10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i7/4420
Dunlop, S., Freeman, B., & Jones, S. C. (2016). Marketing to youth in the digital age: The promotion of unhealthy products and health promoting behaviours on social media. Media and Communication, 4(3), 35-49. doi:10.17645/mac.v4i3.522
Fergie, G., Hunt, K., & Hilton, S. (2013). What young people want from health-related online resources: A focus group study. Journal of Youth Studies, 16(5), 579-596. doi:10.1080/ 13676261.2012.744811
Field, J. A., Elbert, D. J., & Moser, S. B. (2012). The use of social media in building interest in wellness on a college campus. American Journal of Business Education, 5(5), 515-524. doi:10.19030/ajbe.v5i5.7207
Frimming, R. E., Polsgrove, M. J., & Bower, G. G. (2011). Evaluation of a health and fitness social media experience. American Journal of Health Education, 42(4), 222-227. doi:10.1080/19325037.2011.10599191
Gardner, B. (2015). A review and analysis of the use of ‘habit’ in understanding, predicting and influencing health-related behaviour. Health Psychology Review, 9(3), 277-295. doi:10.1080/17437199.2013.876238
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59-82. doi:10.1177/152582 2X05279903
Guidry, J. P., Jin, Y., Orr, C. A., Messner, M., & Meganck, S. (2017). Ebola on Instagram and Twitter: How health organizations address the health crisis in their social media engagement. Public Relations Review, 43(3), 477-486. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04. 009
Instagram users in Malaysia. (2019, January). Retrieved from https://napoleoncat.com/stats/ instagram-users-in-malaysia/2019/01
Isaranon, Y. (2019). The role of Facebook affirmation towards ideal self-image and self-esteem. The Journal of Behavioral Science, 14(1), 46-62.
Joseph, R. P., Ainsworth, B. E., Mathis, L., Hooker, S. P., & Keller, C. (2017). Utility of social cognitive theory in intervention design for promoting physical activity among African-American women: A qualitative study. American Journal of Health Behavior, 41(5), 518-533. doi:10.5993/AJHB.41.5.1
Kamel Boulos, M., Giustini, D., & Wheeler, S. (2016). Instagram and WhatsApp in health and healthcare: An overview. Future Internet, 8(3), 37. doi:10.3390/fi8030037
Kelly, M. P., & Barker, M. (2016). Why is changing health-related behaviour so difficult? Public Health, 136, 109-116. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2016.03.030
Kim, J., Lee, C., & Elias, T. (2015). Factors affecting information sharing in social networking sites amongst university students: Application of the knowledge-sharing model to social networking sites. Online Information Review, 39(3), 290-309. doi:10.1108/OIR-01-2015-0022
Latkin, C. A., & Knowlton, A. R. (2015). Social network assessments and interventions for health behavior change: A critical review. Behavioral Medicine, 41(3), 90-97. doi.org/10.1080/08964289.2015.1034645
Lin, H. C., & Chang, C. M. (2018). What motivates health information exchange in social media? The roles of the social cognitive theory and perceived interactivity. Information & Management, 55(6), 771-780. doi:10.1016/j.im.2018.03.006
World Health Organization. (2019, April). Malaysia and WHO call for more investment in primary health care the 21st century. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/malaysia/
news/detail/08-04-2019-malaysia-and-who-call-for-more-investment-in-primary-health-care-the-21st-century.
MCMC, (2018). Internet users survey 2018. Cyberjaya, Malaysia: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
Peltzer, K., Pengpid, S., Samuels, T., Özcan, N., Mantilla, C., Rahamefy, O., . . . Gasparishvili, A. (2014). Prevalence of overweight/obesity and its associated factors among university students from 22 countries. International Journal of Environmental Research Public Health, 11(7), 7425-7441. doi:10.3390/ijerph110707425
Ploderer, B., Reitberger, W., Oinas-Kukkonen, H., & Gemert-Pijnen, J. (2014). Social interaction and reflection for behaviour change. Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 18(7), 1667-1676. doi:10.1007/s00779-014-0779-y
Radzi, W. M., Jasimah, C. W., Salarzadeh Jenatabadi, H., Alanzi, A. R., Mokhtar, M. I., Mamat, M. Z., & Abdullah, N. A. (2019). Analysis of obesity among Malaysian university students: A combination study with the application of Bayesian structural equation modelling and Pearson correlation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(3), 492-508. doi:10.3390/ijerph16030492
Riley, L., Guthold, R., Cowan, M., Savin, S., Bhatti, L., Armstrong, T., & Bonita, R. (2016). The World Health Organization STEPwise approach to noncommunicable disease risk-factor surveillance: Methods, challenges, and opportunities. American Journal of Public Health, 106(1), 74-78. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302962
Santarossa, S., & Woodruff, S. J. (2018). # LancerHealth: Using Twitter and Instagram as a tool in a campus wide health promotion initiative. Journal of Public Health Research, 7(1), 9-13. doi:10.4081/jphr.2018.1166
Sarkar, U., Le, G. M., Lyles, C. R., Ramo, D., Linos, E., & Bibbins-Domingo, K. (2018). Using social media to target cancer prevention in young adults. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(6), e203. doi:10.2196/jmir.8882
Shukri, M., Jones, F., & Conner, M. (2016). Work factors, work–family conflict, the theory of planned behaviour and healthy intentions: A cross‐cultural study. Stress Health, 32(5), 559-568. doi:10.1002/smi.2662
Soheylizad, M., & Moeini, B. (2019). Social media: An opportunity for developing countries to change healthy behaviors. Health Education Health Promotion, 7(2), 57-58. doi:10.29252/HEHP.7.2.57
Sunitha, S., & Gururaj, G. (2014). Health behaviours & problems among young people in India: Cause for concern & call for action. The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 140(2), 185-208.
Wang, Y., & Willis, E. (2018). Supporting self-efficacy through interactive discussion in online communities of weight loss. Journal of Health Psychology, 23(10), 1309-1320. doi:10.1177/1359105316653264
Wilson, B., Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Robinson, M. J. (2018). Picture yourself healthy: How users select mediated images to shape health intentions and behaviors. Health Communication, 34(8), 838-847. doi:10.1080/10410236.2018.1437527
Yang, Q. (2017). Are social networking sites making health behavior change interventions more effective? A meta-analytic review. Journal of Health Communication, 22(3), 223-233. doi:10.1080/10810730.2016.1271065
Yin, R. K. (1981). The case study as a serious research strategy. Knowledge, 3(1), 97-114. doi:10.1177/107554708100300106
Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage publications.
Zhang, J., Le, G., Larochelle, D., Pasick, R., Sawaya, G. F., Sarkar, U., & Centola, D. (2019). Facts or stories? How to use social media for cervical cancer prevention: A multi-method study of the effects of sender type and content type on increased message sharing. Preventive Medicine, 126, 105751. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2019.105751
Zhu, S., Yang, H. H., MacLeod, J., Yu, L., & Wu, D. (2019). Investigating teenage students’ information literacy in China: A social cognitive theory perspective. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 28(3), 251–263. doi:10.1007/s40299-019-00433-9