The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

I have now had time to reflect on the workshop I attended at F.A.C.T. in Liverpool, UK at the beginning of the week. The speakers and participants were drawn from a wide cross section of discipline areas including arts, media, technology, social science, health promotion, health care, health science and computer science. There were many interesting and stimulating debates around both practical issues related to the medium of social media and the message in terms of “What is health?”

In terms of the medium, it soon became apparent that there are many barriers that need to be overcome on the health service side if social media is to be utilized effectively. In contrast, arts groups with a social remit are much smaller and more focused organizations that appear much more able to embrace social media.

Significant concern was expressed about “institutionalizing” social media for health purposes and the impact that this would have on its effectiveness. In some ways this represents the difference between prevention versus treatment and also health “monitoring” versus empowerment.

There was also recognition of the problem of the “digital divide” could be further exacerbated by use of social media, however I was a little surprised about the lack of concern about the emerging divide with “Generation Y” due to a lack of engagement on their terms.

Finally, it was encouraging to here some individuals from such a diverse set of backgrounds talking about health-related issues and there was a real sense that “health” in its broadest sense was not the sole responsibility of the health service.