The Worldwide Influence of Social Media on Cervical Spine Literature.

BACKGROUND

The Altmetric (Digital Science, Holtzbrinck Publishing) Attention Score (AAS) is an automatically calculated score that accounts for other literary influences, which include academic sources as well as nonacademically focused social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and news articles. This study compares the most popular cervical surgery articles on social media to the most cited articles within peer-reviewed literature and identifies journals that contribute the most articles and geographic trends.

METHODS

We searched the Altmetric database for cervical spine surgery articles since inception using the search phrase "cervical" and "spine." We ranked journals that contributed the most articles and calculated their AAS, contributing social media outlets (eg, Twitter, Facebook, News, etc) and citation counts. We also ranked the top 100 most popular cervical spine articles on social media and compared them to the most cited articles. Countries were assessed based on their mentions through the most contributing social media platform.

RESULTS

Of the 527 total journals identified in our search, the top 10 journals were responsible for contributing 60.2% of the total articles. The 3 journals that contributed the most articles were (18.9%), (11.8%), and (10.3%). The journals with the highest AAS scores included (11.3), (8.8), and (5.8). Social media outlets that contributed the most mentions per article were Twitter (4.4), Facebook (0.5), and news sources (0.3). Among all countries contributing Twitter mentions, the 3 countries with the most cervical spine posts included the United States (23.3%), the United Kingdom (10.3%), and Spain (5.5%).

CONCLUSION

Our evaluation of cervical spine literature revealed Twitter, Facebook, and news sources are the most common social media outlets influencing title dissemination. Journals contributing the most articles did not necessarily have the highest average AAS.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Spinal surgeons should consider utilization of social media outlets, such as Twitter, Facebook, and news sources, to potentially increase the dissemination of their articles.