Social Networking Creates Social “Awareness”
The rise of online social networking sites in the 21st century has opened up a totally new avenue in the AIDS awareness campaign. A new study has indicated that the sites can lend a hand in controlling the rise of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in homeless youth in Los Angeles.
"Online social networking sites – and the topics discussed on these networks – carry the potential to influence sexual risk behaviors", stated a new study by Sean Young from UCLA and Eric Rice from USC in the US.
As per the study, majority of homeless youth use Internet and online social networking sites and frequently talk to others about videos, drinking, drugs and parties, sex, love and relationships, being homeless, and school experiences. Almost 80 per cent had previously tested for STIs.
Young and Rice concluded: "Although these networks could potentially increase sexual risk behaviors by facilitating an easy way to meet new sex partners, they could also potentially reduce those risks if the networks are used as effective sexual health communication and information portals by health researchers and agencies, to inform users about their risks and offer information on how they can protect themselves."
The study has been published online in Springer's journal AIDS and Behaviour.