I work in the Department of Oncology at Kuopio University Hospital as an assistant ward nurse. In my work, I have to use several different digital platforms. On a daily basis, I have access to the Teams, Skype, Titania, Medanets and patient information system Miranda. I also often use WhatsApp for communication, as it makes it easy and fast to connect with different people and groups I have formed. On the other hand, every now and then I get so many messages on WhatsApp that I may miss important information. However, it is important to remember that information about patients should not be published on social media (for example WhatsApp).

New social media tools for me that I could use in my work

Secapp is still a new system for me, which we just introduced in the work unit. It allows you to quickly capture people or work units using an application installed on your phone. Threatening situations can occur in hospitals, in which case information must be obtained quickly from different departments. With the Secapp system, it succeeds and has been implemented in my work unit to improve both patient and occupational safety. The Secapp system can also be used to crate groups between employees, allowing the supervisor to notify the group if more staff are needed for the job and the employee can respond quickly to this call.

Slack seems to be an efficient, smooth, and safe tool. It allows you to form teams and the communication between teams and individuals is easy. This application allows you to manage your schedules and calendars, as well as video conferencing. I think this could also apply to my own field of daily work.

Twitter is a social media channel where you can share your current information and thoughts. It provides an opportunity to follow what is happening in the world and is intended for public debate. It can be used to track many public figures and heads of state. Twitter also allows companies to promote their brand and is thus one of the marketing channels.

TikTok host a variety of short user videos from different genres. It can increase the visibility of the hospital and wards. It is important to carefully evaluate the content of your videos. Data protection and security must last.

Todoist is a platform for organizing important things and tasks in work and personal life and setting dates for tasks to be completed, so this application replaces the old-fashioned calendar. This could be useful for me too, but I feel that using this would take too much of my time. I still like to use the old-fashioned pen, paper and calendar.

The pros and cons of social media

I think digitalization and various digital applications bring a lot of relied to life when used properly. However, they need to be easy to use and safe for people to start using them. With digitalization, we can take care of a lot of things every day, do shopping and banking and make reservations for movies, theaters and travel, for example. Digitalization saves time.

With digitalization, we can easily go to school from home. I think there are both pros and cons to this. Does continuous digitalization and the use of social media improve young people’s social and interactive skills? How do young people adapt to working life when they need to be able to deal with customers and patients in addition to digital skills? In the social media, different beauty ideals can also distort young people’s thoughts and contribute to, for example, isolation and insecurity.

Self-assessment

In this task, it was interesting to learn about new applications and social media platforms. I know I would be able to make more use of digital services both in my daily life and at work. Maybe someday I’ll start doing that. However, I like meeting different people in different situations. I think in meetings where we are present, the discussion is much freer, and many people share their thoughts more than if we hold a meeting through Teams. I also like to read a book and I want to continue reading a book and not listen to e-books, which helps me relax better in my opinion. Many of my friends are listening to the eBooks and it’s reportedly effective. But does it always have to be so effective?