The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene created a Facebook page to encourage safer sexual practices. I believe the Facebook page was launched just before Valentine's day this year. According to this NY Times article, this is the most ambitious use of social networking technology that city health officials have used to reach the teenage community. (There is also a MySpace environment for teenagers to discuss mental health and substance abuse issues). I haven't been to the Facebook page yet, so I can't say if it's done well or not... but I thought it was an interesting idea to target teens for an educational purpose and wanted to see what other people in class thought....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/nyregion/12econdom.html?_r=1&ref=health
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hi kristine!
ReplyDeletei read this article too! very interesting stuff...
-amy
Hey Amy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. After posting this, I went on to Facebook to take a look. I'm not so sure this campaign will be successful. I mean, I know I'm not in the target age group, but I was going to send out a few e-condoms. Then I thought about how my boyfriend's mom (who is a new Facebook friend) would think about it. If I'm concerned about how other people will perceive giving or receiving an e-condom, will a 14 year old feel more comfortable? And if these teens aren't thinking about other people's perception, should they be? I don't know. But, it does raise some interesting questions...
See you in class!