Social Media in Promoting HIV/AIDS Prevention Behaviour among Young People in Botswana

Social Media in Promoting HIV/AIDS Prevention Behaviour among Young People in Botswana

Tshepo Batane
Copyright: © 2014 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6150-9.ch015
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Abstract

This chapter explores the effects of social media in influencing the behavior of young people in relation to HIV/AIDS. The platform used for the project is an online discussion forum. The study is a One Group Pretest and Posttest inquiry. Formative evaluation is performed at the beginning of the study to establish participants behaviour, the intervention is introduced, then a summative evaluation is done to find out whether the intervention had any effect on the behaviour of the participants. The findings of the study indicate that there is a significant change in the behaviour of participants in relation to HIV/AIDS due to the use of the online forum. The study recommends that more efforts need to be directed to the use of various technologies that young people have at their disposal in the fight against HIV/AIDS as this can be very economical and effective.
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Background

The development of technology in African countries has taken centre stage with countries working to broaden access to the internet and improving technical performance. Recent studies and reports indicate that there are plenty of technology resources in most African countries, however, most of these are not fully utilized to improve the lives of the people (Gerster Consulting, 2008; Kwankam & Ningo, nd; Ogungbure, 2011). In 2004, Adeyemi conducted a study on the use of Information Systems to prevent HIV/AIDS in Lagos, Nigeria. The study surveyed health facilities in the state to find out how computer technology is used in the provision of health services. The study found out that 86% of the surveyed institutions possessed computers and other ICT tools, however, none of them used them in their work. The study concluded that even though there was reasonable ICT infrastructure in the area, there was gross underutilization of these resources. Therefore, there is need to train people to harness the potential of ICT to transform health care delivery and fight HIV/AIDS.

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