One of the topics on the table during last night’s Healthcare Social Media (#hcsm) community discussion was innovative ways that the micro-blogging service Twitter can be used to promote health. In my mind, the question that health professionals are facing is how does taking care of yourself become cool? There are things that people like because they are sexy or fun or just plain awesome… How does health get into one of those categories for people?
One of the ways to coolify health is to integrate it into things that have already been established as being cool. Like twitter, for example.
So when the question came around last night about other uses for twitter and health, besides the traditional meeting new people and pushing out messages, I remembered some things I have come across related to twitter and pregnancy. My wife and I were expecting parents last year. We had our second child last September. So when I read these stories after the fact they seemed to resonate with me. If you’re in to twitter and expecting a child soon, then these two twitter innovations should be right up your alley.
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KickbeeKickbee was developed by Corey Menscher and it’s cool because it lets an unborn baby communicate with the outside world, with its movement. Kickbee is a wearable device that tracks the tiny electrical impulses associated with movement within the human body. What I really like about it is is its integration with Twitter. Twitter time stamps every entry, so when fetal kicks occur they are captured and logged. This provides an automated digital kick count record which can be very useful for expecting mothers. Tracking kicks and movement is recommended for expecting mothers anyway, because a decrease in movement can be an early warning sign for a preventable problem. Kickbee takes out a lot of the guess work associated with trying to keep track of movements throughout the day, while providing insights for friends and family alike.
Tweetlet was developed by Stef Lewandowski and is cool because it gives expecting parents daily updates on how their baby is developing in the womb. Dads, relatives, and friends can now all stay abreast of an individual baby’s developmental process when a Tweetlet account is created for the unborn child. Messages "from the baby" are then sent out every day, in the form of tweets, establishing the child as a family member with a voice well before they appear on the scene.
Think “Hi dad! I just opened my eyes for the first time” or “Hi mum! I’ve just grown fingernails” – pretty cool details that make you think during your busy life
Its uncertain at this time whether receiving tweets about a child’s movement and development in the womb fosters increased engagement for expecting family members, but I personally think that its more engaging then looking at the generic picture books. Not that there is anything wrong with those picture books… Another byproduct is allowing geographically separated friends and family to stay connected throughout the development process. Both of these tools bring the information to a format that people can easily use on a daily basis. That kind of accessibility is cool in and of itself.
What do you think? Is baby tweeting cool or freakish? Is it an innovative use of twitter, or a waste of time? And what other unexpected ways can health and social media cross paths? Please leave a comment below with your take.
Photo by: davhor
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