Text messaging and health

When I typed in health and text messaging I have realized that they have used this technology tool to help out with a variety of things such as helping the HIV/AIDS in South Africa to helping young teens to quit smoking.

This is a great tool to get out the news about health problems. As far as the HIV/AIDS alerts go, it was said that about 90 percent of people in Africa use some kind of technology and get these text messages when they need more minutes on their prepaid phone. When they send a message that they need more minutes then they get a message back that allows them to get the hotline for HIV/AIDS help. They said in the article that this helped raise phone calls for help about 200 percent. This isn’t the first time that they have used this to spread the word about health care issues, but for some reason this campaign has been more successful than the others. The consequences of using this are that it is most likely to not reach the people that need it the most. Many under privileged people don’t have cell phones in order to get these text messages. I feel like they are the ones that need to be informed the most. However, it does help out majority of the people that do have cell phones. It doesn’t have a lot of information and people must give the effort to call and get help.

The second article I chose was text messaging helping teens quit smoking. This study was put together in New Zealand and showed that the rates for teen smokers with the average age of 25 had an easier time to quit smoking after receiving text messages daily for five months straight. If they quit, the teen received a month of free personal text messaging. This study may have had some miscalculations because it was a self reporting study. They want to start using it in different countries such as China, where there are 50 million young smokers. They also stated that it is going to help further the use of text messages as a popular method for public health interventions.

I really liked looking at these articles but I really want to see more of this use in America. Both of these are in two different countries and they seem to make a difference so why haven’t we tried this sort of promotion in the United States yet? So many people my age right now are using text messages; I think that we are the only generation that fully understands how to use text messaging. It would be a great way to reach the younger population because we are so technology savvy but on the other had I feel like many pare undereducated about health care and where to get help. But then once again you don’t reach everyone, especially the people that really need it.

Whyville

This is a great way for teens to get educated early about getting vaccinations and a great way to promote good health. If you make a point to educate early on then it can help students to make healthy choices later on in life. This idea of a virtual world definitely reaches out to a different age group. It was easy and fun to explore around this little virtual world.

It was easy and fun to explore the whyville. In the town there were a lot of different houses I could explore and learn a wide variety of information from. But this virtual world may teach something but then it also may just be a game for them to play, not learn anything. I found it hard to actually understand what I was really supposed to do but explore. I wanted more structure through the virtual world. There could’ve been more information available to the audience. This is a great starting point but more attention needs to go towards health care.
Personal health behaviors are best addressed in this manor of the virtual world. These little characters are allowed to go where ever they please but then in real life they can also make their own decisions. Once they make these healthy decisions they can apply these choices to their own lives, not just to their virtual lives.

I got lost in the virtual world. I liked the fact that I could explore freely but I then again saw this as a game, not a learning experience. I wasn’t exactly the target audience, but I could’ve still had more information available to me. I explored the doctor’s house in the whyville and there wasn’t a lot about health at all. It was however a place where students could ask question about the things in the room.

This interactive game most appeals to the younger generation. This is very helpful because most of new information today is portrayed over the internet and this is helping them to understand how to get this information. This is a way for them to learn how to make healthy decisions and at the same time, learn how to safely use the internet. This could be promoted more widely if students of the target age were exposed to this in the classroom. Maybe monitored by a teacher and then they could help guide them towards the health information in this whyville.