Eat this. Wear that. And make sure to do what? When faced with decisions of all sorts, defaulting to outside influence is natural: Well, what is everyone else doing? This “I’ll jump if you do” tendency has been the focus of Sinan Aral, the David Austin Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, since the dawn of his research. Aral is embarking upon an investigation of social networking’s power to encourage HIV testing in South Africa, prompting a renewed discussion over the power of peer influence both online and off.
“In the field of communication, there’s obviously been a lot of work around what we call ‘e-health,’ and typically this is involved with using things like texting technology to do things like remind people to take medicines,” said Joseph Harris, assistant professor of sociology at Boston University. “I would expect that there could be great applications for social media to come.”
The MIT researchers plan to examine the effects of sending mass messages regarding HIV testing through social media platforms. This basis in social media is expected to make analysis feasible and to present a promising method for HIV prevention similar to those already used electronic health applications.
“There are a number of situations in society where we have these feedback loops, between public opinion and individual decision-making, where the types of social influence can really generate some very stark outcomes and important decisions,” Aral said in a Nov. 10 press release. “I really see this as a basic science.”
Aral could not be reached for comment.
At the core of this “basic science” is the distinction between peer interaction and homophily, the general association of like-minded individuals. In light of public health concerns, such as HIV testing, figuring out which cause drives population decision-making paves way for discovering how to make improvements.
In 2013, an estimated 6.3 million people in South Africa were living with HIV, according to a report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, or UNAIDS. Promotion of preventative measures through social networking could address the stigma surrounding getting tested.
“The short answer is you can’t be treated if you’re not tested, and that is one of the big problems,” said Frank Feeley, associate professor of global heath at the School of Public Health at BU. “One of the problems in Africa was that they tended to do testing originally by setting up stand-alone voluntary counseling and testing centers. The problem with that is, it was a little bit like walking into church wearing a scarlet ‘A.’”
In terms of making a difference with social media, Harris said history is on the MIT team’s side.
“If we look at the role it [social media] played in the Arab Spring and the revolution [in the Middle East], really it’s also been used to bring to light human rights abuses,” Harris said.
But the right to treatment for HIV might go beyond the reach of instant messaging. A major contributor to South Africa’s problem with the disease is the less-than-accessible nature of clinical care, Feeley said.
“Even when you test positive, there’s enormous loss getting into the system,” he said. “Just knowing you have it [HIV], you’re still two or three stages away from actually getting treatment because you have to have it staged. Then you have to stay on the drugs.”
Another roadblock is the wildcard nature of larger social networks. Harris said mass communication has the capability to reinforce set habits as much as it does the opportunity to create change.
“The issue with social media is that we quite often are selective in what [we] allow to be part of our networks and what we allow in,” Feeley said. “In a lot of cases, this reinforces our thinking…rather than sort of challenging our psyche, because we tend to subscribe to what we like.”
At the very least, social networking will provide Aral with a large look at South Africa’s affected population. His team’s large-scale test marks an effort toward using today’s resources for the good of global health, Harris said.
“That really all comes down to how it [social media] is used,” he said. “I would say that they’re probably not magic bullets…but it can certainly be a help.”
