Digital futures: health-seeking on social media

This chapter seeks to further develop insights into the health implications of the social media platform Facebook, for Indigenous users, by paying attention to the forces that work to shape online health-seeking practices. In seeking help for issues related to health and well-being, I ask whether digital technologies such as Facebook have potential to provide an avenue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health-seekers. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander social media users from a range of locations across the continent now called Australia. Four main factors were found that can serve as barriers to online health-seeking: social media etiquette and ‘proper' online behaviour; the tension between help-seeking and attention-seeking behaviours; the (mis)trust of social media technologies and the networks they facilitate; and the superficial quality of many social media interactions.