Cyber wellness: balanced offline and online lives – the perspective of medical professionals towards new humanism

Research on social network sites has examined how people integrate offline and online life. But there is a lack of research with a particular emphasis on their communication for better health within health-related groups. In this paper, we examine how offline ties are almost non-existent, but online ties are strong in terms of the development of new humanism and in apparent social life. All of us today have a parallel existence even in the world of health information/misinformation. This shows up as our online identity on social media sites, discussion forums, learning communities and even personal health blogs and websites. Today using social media every day has become more of a need than a choice in communication, where we are finding solutions to our health care needs in an ever-connected world. This study aims to demonstrate if it can do more harm than good, if we lose sight of the right motivations and values, and fail to create a balance between our online and offline lives from the perspective of medical professionals. The increased challenges such as cybercrimes, digital deceptions and more have its effect on cyber wellness. As we become more cyber-smart every day, we also become more cyber-endangered in living a healthy life. According to the Task Force on Cyber Wellness, cyber wellness is defined as ‘the positive well-being of Internet users and healthy cyberculture for the Internet community’. In this study, because the development of a cyber wellness culture is a complex, evolving and multi-tiered phenomenon, and the use of several theories addressing different constructs are indicated. Maslow’s Developmental Theory and Roger’s Theory of Diffusion of Innovation were the point of departure in this study. The study demonstrates how online lives of youth are moving towards an unhealthy life from the perspective of oral health medical professionals. Based on an online survey the study establishes how the majority (57%) the youth are abandoning the abstractions of structuralism and returning to performance that entails new humanism leading to healthier lives with the essence of the cyber experience that is fundamentally moral and ethically grounded in the digital space.