Health impacts of Facebook usage and mobile texting among undergraduate dental students: it's time to understand the difference between usage and an excessive use

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

One third of this group of undergraduate dental students considered they used excessively Facebook and/or mobile texting.

Main

Lee YL, Verma RK et al. Eur J Dent Educ 2016; 20: 218–228

Twelve percent of young adults admit that they send 51–100 text messages each day. Such online social networking can lead to psychological problems, including addiction. In this cross-sectional study, carried out with dental students in a private university in Malaysia, many characteristics that were considered associated with online social networking, were explored by use of a questionnaire (N = 188 returned). The number of students who declined to participate in the study was not stated. 'Well-being' was gauged using the WHO-Five Wellbeing Index (WHO-5) and dependence measured using CAGE (Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener). Excessive use of Facebook was associated with a fewer number of close friends and, although possibly counter-intuitive, 'the absence of active and vigorous feelings during Facebook use'. With respect to mobile texting, it was found that respondents developed anxious feelings when they failed to receive immediate message replies (known as as 'Textiety').