Is Social Media Here to Stay?: Survey Results Indicate Increasing Pathologist Interest and Engagement Over Time

Social media has become widely adopted by pathologists and other physicians for professional purposes. While engagement has likely increased over time, there remain few concrete data regarding attitudes toward its use.

To assess pathologists' use of and attitudes toward social media over time.

We created a survey regarding personal and professional use of social media and circulated it via multiple channels in December 2017 and again in February 2022. Results of the 2 surveys were compared for statistically significant differences.

The 2017 survey was completed by 97 participants, and the 2022 survey by 305 participants. Respondents were predominantly female and academics, included pathologists in all age categories and all time-in-practice length. In both surveys, Twitter (now X) was the most popular platform for professional use and Facebook was the most popular for personal use. Professional barriers to social media use remained consistent between the 2 surveys, including the amount of time required. Education was seen as the main benefit of social media use in both surveys, while other benefits such as networking and increasing professional visibility were endorsed significantly less often in the second survey. While the second survey received more than 3 times as many responses as the first, several aspects of social media use (mainly demographics) remained similar during the timeframe, while other aspects (such as usage and perceived values) decreased.

Pathologists continue to find social media valuable. Barriers remain, though overall pathologists of all ages and practice settings appear receptive to using social media to further educational and other opportunities.