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Dentistry in the age of mass communication From the ‘Hollywood smiles’ of yesteryear to the ‘Instagram glow-ups’ of today, how has social media impacted dentistry and oral health?
Büşra Akarsu, Turkey
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ocial media, constantly evolving and taking new forms and shapes, has changed the face of much we take for granted and has a considerable impact on the world today. It is estimated that more than 45% of the world’s population are social media users, equating to billions of people of differing cultures and nations. The impact of social media communication platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and more recently TikTok on the realities of various professions, and general market relations, is immense. In-
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deed, we should consider the adverse consequences of these platforms as much as we extol their virtues, and the supposed benefits and opportunities we derive from them. After debating the true nature of the beast, and describing the context of the social media age, it is important to consider its implications on dentistry from the perspectives of both patient and clinician.
The Internet
The rapid growth of the internet since the early 1990s multiplied exponentially since the advent of
the first social media platforms, and the simultaneous development of handheld communication devices catalysed this immense global rush towards mass communication. Users are able to interact with, listen to and share content from whoever and whatever they want, while themselves being able to post to their heart’s content whenever they desire. It is this reality that gave rise to a world that profits from clicks and contact-time, and the need to constantly feed this growing ecosystem gave rise to the internet’s own ‘content creators’, from models to bloggers, product-testers, analysts, artists and much more. Every ecosystem has its death-traps and quagmires, and the internet is teeming with its own - cesspits of hatred, conspiracies and disinformation. It has therefore become imperative for professions and experts of their respective fields, to defend fact and strip away the fiction, and to arbitrate between truth, falsehood and uncertainty. From medical doctors to nutritionists to those in the dental community; from the healthcare sector to the pharmaceutical industry, companies, organisations and people in these fields have built
