Social media: Insights for medical education from instructor perceptions and usage

The popularity and utility of social media in medical education have progressed dramatically during the last decade. Social media are increasingly used for educational and professional purposes and are known to be both theoretically beneficial and practically effective. We have investigated the perceptions and usage of social media by educators across multiple disciplines, roles and demographics in order to determine the present situation regarding social media as educational tools. We show that discipline and demographics have limited impact on perceptions of the value of social media. As medical educators, we consider our findings to be broadly pertinent to undergraduate medical education. Results presented here indicate that many educators at UK universities consider social media to be educationally valuable. However, this is not always directly translated into usage due to the presence of certain barriers. This finding is characterised by a disparity between the extent of positive perceptions of social media and the amount of practical usage within the context of medical education and other undergraduate disciplines. Our work has shed some light on the reasons why educators may choose not to use social media, in addition to how and why they do use it, which can provide a basis for developing strategies for training medical educators in approaches to social media in learning and teaching, and for encouraging appropriate usage of these valuable educational tools.