Spare a Square and Get Healthy April 27, 2010

Check out my first-ever Podcast from April 27, 2010. In the episode, I discuss how you can use the customized search engine Google Squared to get organized health information quickly and easily.

I hope you find the episode interesting and informative. Feel free to leave comments with feedback on the podcast or suggestions for future episodes. Thank you and enjoy!

Social Media: The New Sex Ed April 2, 2010

Sexual education for kids and teens is quite the hot topic, especially when it comes to the information students receive in their schools. Debates over how best to prevent teen pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Diseases rage on, yet rates in many states continue to rise. Due to the popularity of social media among teens and young adults, it makes sense that advocacy groups have turned to these sites to reach out to teens and provide accurate sexual health information.

New Media to Address Old Problems

ISIS, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using new media to provide sexual health information to young adults. The group has used several social media strategies to address rising STD and pregnancy rates among American teens. Though I have not used any of these services before writing this blog, I examined much of the material and found it highly educational and interesting.

• Planned Parenthood and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy both provide free podcasts covering relationship and sexual health topics, and the California Family Health Council has its own YouTube Channel featuring a variety of videos on common teen health and sex concerns. I found the videos informative and fun to watch. They feature real teens speaking like teens do, not older “experts” spouting off a bunch of facts. Below is a video about featuring a young male talking about the need to practice safe sex.

• The HookUp is a sexual health text messaging service created to address high gonorrhea rates among teens in San Francisco. Users can text “SexINFO” to a 5-digit number and find answers to common sexual questions. This can be key when timing is an issue to quickly address ineffective, forgotten, or broken birth control methods.

• Widgets and applications for cell phones are another innovative measure used to provide sexual health information. Facebook users can use the “Sexpert” application to test their sexual health knowledge and read relevant blogs and articles. AIDS.gov also provides several new media tools, such as social bookmarks, widgets and podcasts to spread HIV and AIDS awareness and direct users to HIV testing sites.

Though socially conservative parents may cringe at the thought of their children using the Internet to get information about sex, they have to get it somewhere. Judging from the United States’ high STD and pregnancy rates compared to other Westernized nations, it’s clear that the “safe sex” message is not getting through to our teens. I think using social media to reach the very people who use it most makes more sense than any other method, and I applaud these groups for putting ideology aside and making it easier for young adults to access the information they need.