Using Social Media for Health Purposes: Positive Associations with Health Literacy and Information Behavior of Students

Health literacy (HL) is defined as the cognitive and social skills that determine an individual's ability to access, comprehend, and utilize health information effectively. The World Health Organization emphasiz-es its importance in promoting health and preventing diseases. The current study aimed to explore the potential positive effects of regular social media use as a new information source on students’ health lit-eracy and health information behavior. The research design was a sequential mixed-methods approach (qualitative-quantitative) and data collected from 380 students using three validated questionnaires was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling in LISREL 8.7. The results demonstrate that social media use significantly improves both health literacy and health information behavior. Furthermore, social media use and health information behavior are related in a meaningful way and health literacy has a major im-pact on both behaviors. It is advised to conduct similar research in the future, even on the negative im-pacts, and to invest more in educating users in evaluating and using information in order to become more capable of overcoming potential future global diseases. This is due to the fact that effective and consistent use of social media has a favorable impact on students’ preventive and health-related decisions.