Usage of Social Media and Smartphone Application in Assessment of Physical and Psychological Well-Being of Individuals in Times of a Major Air Pollution Crisis

Zhang, Melvyn WB; Ho, Cyrus SH; Fang, Pan; Lu, Yanxia; Ho, Roger CM

From our current knowledge, this is one of the few studies to formally assess the application of Internet-based social media and a smartphone-based application to gather data from the general population during a crisis. This study was methodologically feasible and demonstrated the usefulness of social medial and a smartphone-based application during a severe air-pollution crisis, which necessitated individuals to stay indoors, and helped to reduce the barriers pertaining to recruitment. Multiple social activities and events were curtailed, and the general public had to engage in other home-based activities. Engaging in Web-based social networking activities was a popular option. Our current findings showed that more individuals preferred the option of accessing and providing feedback to a questionnaire on physical and psychological well-being by direct Internet Web-link access, as compared with indirect access via Facebook or even a smartphone application. Our results did show, that for our current study, demographic variables such as gender, level of education, and age did not significantly affect the mechanism of access. Our current study showed that for the Asian population surveyed, demographic variables did not predict whether individuals would use either direct Internet access to provide feedback about their physical and psychological well-being, or whether they would use newer modalities of technologies like social media (Facebook) or a smartphone application.