Online communities and social networks toward achieving common goals

Online communities are bound together by a common interest or topic. Jenny Preece describes online communities as the following: People, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating. Each member of an online community has his or her social network, and when they come together online, can make things happen. With high penetration of social media in the Philippines, there have been a lot of online communities and social networks.

Many things have been taught about the millenial generation (born between 1980-2000) nowadays in postgraduate conferences, in meetings of medical societies and medical education conventions, because they seem so different from the previous generation in that they were born into the internet technology and have different resources at their fingertips compared with older generations. They are motivated by different incentives, and it has been said that millenials will work on causes that they find meaningful. A career for millennials is a journey of self-discovery. What I have learned from the millenials that I teach is that when you involve them them in projects that can potentially change society, they will work wonders with the resources that they have and get the job done.

Last year, we organized a caravan of HIV forums for medical students to improve HIV awareness and to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV (PLHIVs). To rally all the members of the group, we used #TEACHCebu to unify all comments, photos and videos. More energetic than the faculty coordinators we met up with, the students who understood the "why" paved the way for online meetings and discussions on the "who, what, where and when". More than thinking of ourselves, we were working for a cause together.

Social media changes the way people interact with each other. We could comment and share our "Eureka" moments with each other 24/7 in the middle of the night as the thoughts occur. Jayeel Cornelio of the Ateneo de Manila University says "Young people are looking for avenues where they feel they are effective". Renzel Yu of Cebu Doctors' University Accentuating Lives Through Service and Advocacy (ALSA) shares that intense discussion occurs online (mostly thru facebook messenger) before an activity is conducted, to minimize miscommunication and to ensure that each member has his or her own assigned task. This makes for successful projects.

Whether it is to promote a noble cause or to campaign for a certain candidate for the upcoming elections to make their platforms known, social media is a powerful tool that can be used to gather people together, to keep them connected, and to make things happen.