Impact of Social Media on Health Awareness of Female Santhali Teenagers and Adolescents of Bolpur

Abstract

The widespread use of social media in recent years has changed how teenagers and young adults connect, get information, and develop their awareness of health and wellbeing. In the Bolpur districts of West Bengal, India, where significant indigenous Santhal communities are concentrated, the study investigates the effects of social media on health awareness among female Santhal teenagers and adolescents. The study looks into how digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp raise awareness of issues including mental health, illness prevention, nutrition, reproductive and menstrual health, personal hygiene, and access to health-related services. Social media has a particularly important role as a developing platform for informal health communication in India, given the socio-cultural and economic marginalisation of tribal populations. A hybrid research design was used, combining focus groups, interviews, and survey research. Both school-age and non-school-age girls from various socioeconomic backgrounds with differing degrees of digital exposure made up the sample. The following factors were examined: the degree of social media use, the reason for using it, the types of health-related content viewed, the opinion of the reliability of online content, and behavioural shifts connected to health consciousness. The outcome shows that many Santhal girls may now directly obtain health information or receive it through peer-shared messages thanks to the growing availability of smartphones and reasonably priced internet connection. Menstrual hygiene, vaccination, anaemia prevention, nutrition, and sanitation practices have all become more widely known thanks to government health initiatives, NGOs, influencer-based content, and health-related educational videos.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199963313.2026.262-287