The Role of Primary Care Physicians in Curtailing Harmful Social Media Trends.

Social media platforms, such as YouTube and Instagram, have become the latest medium for communication with a vast potential for influencing society. With their rise, a virtual market now exists where attention in the form of "likes," "views," and "followers" is traded for a monetary and psychological benefit. Amid this trade, physically risky behaviors have arisen to become a new attraction for attention, leading to numerous "trends" that encourage the same risk-taking behavior. Such trends, even those with a positive goal, have simultaneously led to injuries and fatalities, which highlights the necessity of a proactive approach to curtail the same. While media outlets and some non-governmental organizations usually highlight the risks of participating in these trends, the healthcare community has yet to have a collective and organized response to extreme social media participation. As such, a collaborative effort involving multiple tiers of the healthcare community is required to successfully prevent vulnerable populations from falling prey to the virtual attention-based economy of extreme social media participation.