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Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
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Myeloma and Social Media
Myeloma and social media!? Talk about pros and cons…The article below highlights two key facts about medical information on social media.
- First, 55% of adults use social media to discuss medical information. I guess that this percentage is much higher for survivors and patients with my cancer, multiple myeloma.
- Second, “trust in the content remains low across all platforms.” Meaning, much of the content, much of what MM patients say, is about their personal experience. While this may be helpful generally, it is anecdotal, aka one person’s experience. It may or may not be your experience.
The first thing that newly diagnosed MM patients should do is try to understand the speaker’s bias. Everyone has a bias. If the source receives money from a drug company, they will be biased in favor of that drug company. If a MM patient did well with a type of therapy, an ASCT for example, they will be biased in favor of ASCT or aggressive treatments.
Oncologists, MM survivors, and non-profits are all biased. Even I’m biased. I’m not saying that a bias means that a person is wrong. I’m saying that it behoves the reader to understand where the speaker is coming from.
In the video below, Dr. Usmani discusses his own experience with MM and social media. While we aren’t board-certified M.D.s like Dr. Usmani, we can benefit from the speed and universal accessibility of social media.
Engaging in social media is extremely helpful to discuss research
I am a long-term MM survivor. When I was first diagnosed, I had never heard of MM and went to the library straight from the hospital. The first book about MM that I read stated that MM has an average life expectancy of 3-5 years. All to say that many of the statistics that you read about on social media are averages and may have nothing to do with your specifics.
At the same time of my diagnosis in 1994, my wife and I were alone in a library desperately searching for information about my incurable blood cancer. Today, newly diagnosed MM patients can reach out to 000’s of fellow MM patients to discuss anything and everything about their incurable blood cancer.
Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com to learn more about managing MM with both conventional and evidence-based non-conventional therapies.
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
More than Half of Adults Use Social Media for Health Information
Key Takeaways
- Social media is a prevalent source for health information, especially among young adults and minority groups, despite low trust in the content.
- Health topics like weight loss, diet, and mental health are commonly seen, while trust in the information remains low across platforms.
SHOW MORE
A new KFF poll found that 55% of adults use social media to find health information, with most of this group comprising young adults and those of Black and Hispanic descent.
Social media is more frequently becoming a tool to find health information in adults, according to a new poll from KFF.1 A total of 55% of adults polled reported that they had used social media, at least occasionally, to find health information or advice in the past month, with young adults and those of Black and Hispanic descent reporting more frequent use.
Adults, especially young adults, frequently use social media for their health information, according to a new survey. | Image credit: Rawpixel.com – stock.adobe.com
This survey, conducted between July 8 and July 14, 2025, used a nationally representative sample of adults in the US and asked questions either online or over the telephone. This particular sample included 1004 adults, of whom 58 spoke Spanish predominately and 979 completed the survey online.
Although 45% of those surveyed reported that they never used social media to get health information or advice, more reported the opposite, with 11% reporting everyday use, 11% reporting use at least once a week, 4% reporting that they used social media at least once a month, and 29% reporting that they used social media occasionally to look up health information.
When looking into specific demographics, those aged 18 to 29 years were the most frequent users of social media to find health information, with only 26% never using social media. Hispanic (26%) and Black (35%) participants also had low percentages of those who never used social media compared with White participants (53%).
Party line was not significant in differences between those who used social media for health information, with Democrats (46%) and Republicans (48%) having near equal percentages of those who never used social media. Independents used social media slightly more than either, with only 41% reporting that they never used social media for health information.
“Notably,” the authors stated, “sizeable shares of adults who say they ‘never’ use social media to find health information and advice nonetheless report seeing these topics, including 7 in 10 who say they have seen weight loss, diet, and nutrition information on social media in the past month.”
Topics of health information varied according to the surveyed participants. A total of 72% reported that they were exposed to health information on social media that had to do with weight loss, diet, and nutrition within the past 30 days. Mental health was also popular on social media, with 58% reporting seeing content based on the topic in the previous 30 days. Vaccines (38%), abortion (30%), and birth control (22%) were far less frequently seen.
Content surrounding mental health (61% vs 49%), vaccines (43% vs 31%), abortion (35% vs 23%), and birth control (24% vs 15%) were more frequently seen by Democrats compared with Republicans. Black (34%) and Hispanic (29%) adults were less likely to see content about vaccines compared with White (41%) adults. Adults aged 18 to 29 years were more likely to see content regarding mental health (77% vs 67%), abortion (40% vs 30%), and birth control (39% vs 22%) compared with those aged 30 to 49 years, with the frequency of seeing content related to these topics decreasing by age; frequency of weight loss and vaccine content did not differ significantly by age.
Despite the frequency of use of social media to collect health information, less than 1 in 10 users of social media report trusting most of the information they received from any of the platforms. About a quarter of those using Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly known as Twitter) report trusting some of the information; about 3 in 10 participants reported trusting some of the information on YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit.
“Just over half (54%) of TikTok users ages 18 [to] 29 say ‘most’ or ‘some’ of the health information and advice they see on the app is trustworthy, as do about half (47%) of young YouTube users, and about 4 in 10 young Reddit (42%) and Instagram (38%) users,” the report stated.
About 15% of adults who use social media reported getting health information from an influencer. “Certain groups are more likely to report relying on social media influencers for health information and advice, including about one in five 18 [to] 29-year-olds (23%) and Black adults who use social media (21%),” the authors wrote.
A total of 39% of the surveyed adults believed that health influencers were serving public interest vs 61% who believed they were serving their own financial interests.
The survey builds on a similar survey done in 2024, which polled participants about their use of technology to receive health information.2 In that survey, 56% of participants reported using social media every day or at least once a week to find health information, indicating that this trend has remained consistent year over year. The previous survey found that 32% of participants were very or somewhat confident in the answers that social media provided.
The polls from both 2024 and 2025 shine a light on how adults, especially young adults, get their health information and how much they trust the information that they are given. With the possibility of adults consuming misinformation on these websites, it is imperative to establish best practices for receiving health information in young adults to encourage information literacy as they consume health information online.
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