ABSTRACT
The emergence of social media resources in the form of social networking sites,
blogs/microblogs, forums, question answering services, online communities and encyclopedias,
which are often collectively referred to as Web 2.0, designated a move from passive consumption to
active creation of diverse types of content by Internet users. Unlike newswire articles, social media
goes beyond stating facts and describing events and provides a wealth of information about public
opinion on virtually any topic, including healthcare. Recent studies [39] [38] report that 61% of
American adults seek health information online and 37% have accessed or posted health informa-
tion online. In addition to that, 72% of online adults in the United States are using social media. Of
adult social media users, 23% follow their friends’ personal health experiences or updates, 17% use
social media to remember and memoralize people with a specific health condition and 15% obtain
health information from social media sites [7].
