Abstract
The objective of the research was to study the pattern of social media use among adolescents visiting an inner city hospital emergency department. A brief survey (English/Spanish) regarding social media use was conducted between January and March 2010. Participants were 215 teens (13-18 years), 59% of whom were Hispanic. The majority (78.6%) of participants were current users of social media. MySpace (65%) was the favored social networking web site. The study revealed that 44% of adolescents most frequently (>5 times/day) connected with their proximate peers, and 36 teens sought health information "once in a while." We concluded that social media networking was popular among our adolescent study subjects and may have future potential as an effective health education tool. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.