Nurse Leaders and the Use of Social Media: Becoming Literate to Lead

Social Media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other web-based group with which one may associate for the purpose of communicating with members, is now ingrained in our culture. Recent surveys showed that 60% of people in the world are actively using text technology-the ability to send short, written messages to either individuals or groups, primarily from handheld communication devices-and that over 193,000 text messages are sent every second. Texting is the most used data service in the world. 1 Even more telling is the fact that 48% of all adults use social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, and that such use accounts for a quarter of all time spent on the internet. 2 Yet many healthcare organizations either fail to have any official policy regarding the use of social media or are tied to guidelines that fail to acknowledge the realities of this cultural shift and try to limit or prohibit this form of communication.