Joy Lim Li Ying, 15

School: CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School

Topic: Can social media make a positive impact on organ donation?

Award: Merit, Senior Category, 2023

Organ transplantation is a paramount breakthrough in today’s medical industry. Undergoing this procedure allows people who have chronic illnesses such as leukemia and myelodysplastic disorders or genetic conditions to live a normal and healthier life. This causes the demand for transplantable organs to rise substantially. However, the number of patients in need of organ transplants immensely outnumbers the number of organ donors. Hence, those working in healthcare sectors have turned to social media to spread awareness by disseminating information related to organ donations. They hope that this will encourage more people to be willing to donate their organs during organ donation drives. In an article published by John Hopkins Medicine, researchers concluded that social media might be an effective tool to tackle the stubborn organ shortage in the United States after a social media push boosted the number of organ donors by approximately 21 times. From this, we can see that social media can have a significant, positive effect on organ donation, but wouldn’t it be too good to be true if it only had positive effects? In this essay, I will be discussing the advantages and limitations of social media on organ donation efforts in order to fully understand its implications.

To start off, social media has a large influence and spread in our daily lives. Over the past few years, the number of users on social networking platforms have increased exponentially. As of January 2020, the global social media usage rate reached 49%, and the number is expected to grow even more as lesser developed digital markets catch up with other regions. In the past few decades, social media has started to become an integral part of our daily lives, with Facebook surpassing one billion registered accounts and an estimate of 2.7 billion users every month. Since 2015, the average time spent on social media and messaging apps has increased to 144 minutes per day, which is more than a 30 minute increase compared to previous years.

From this, we can see that social media is slowly but surely turning into an indispensable component of our daily routines. As it is a critical platform for making and staying in touch with friends, it allows for deeper bonds to be forged between individuals. This changes our definition of a “friend”. The public nature of social networking sites allows us to engage with people whom we do not know personally, which turns it into a sort of “safe space” for us to express our individual identities. Hence, transplant candidates might feel more comfortable asking for an organ donation online. Furthermore, when people hear the stories of individuals in need of organ donations, they may empathise with their suffering and imagine themselves or their loved ones in similar situations. This emotional connection can inspire them to take action and offer support through organ donation. When those in need share their stories online, there is a chance for them to reach acquaintances who, although not intimately connected, may be willing to offer an organ donation to them. Just last year, Molly Gray selflessly donated one of her kidneys to Dan Napoleon, a fellow parent of a child on her son’s soccer team. Prior to Dan posting an appeal for a kidney donor online, the other parents were unaware of his deteriorating health. However, upon learning about his situation, they all rallied together to undergo testing, but most of them turned out to have kidney issues. Ultimately, it was Gray who emerged as the compatible match. After she participated in a “paired donation”, Dan became free from dialysis and was able to experience a new lease on life. This displays how social media can positively affect organ donation by facilitating connections between potential donors and recipients.

Furthermore, social media platforms allow information to reach its target audience instantly with little delay. There are several advantages of this feature, such as the ability to receive live updates, the increase of the donor pool, rapid spreading of awareness, amplified campaigns and initiatives, and even more support garnered for the organ recipients. This also ensures that no time will be wasted when appealing for an organ so those in critical need have a higher chance of matching with a donor.

While social media can play a positive role in raising awareness and also increasing the chances of organ donations, it is not without its drawbacks, with the first disadvantage being the high chance of exploitation and scams. Organ donation scams involve fraudulent activities aimed at exploiting the generosity and goodwill of individuals who wish to donate their organs for transplantation. The most common types include financial and phishing scams. These scams often target vulnerable individuals or prey on people’s emotions during times of crisis, such as when a loved one is in need of an organ transplant. Nonetheless, this is not always the case. For people like Doctor Amit Kumar, who gained notoriety in the Gurgaon Kidney Racket of 2008, they simply see this illegal act as a means of saving more lives to combat the government system’s failure at doing so. While they have good intentions at heart, their criminal activity spooks potential organ donors, which might influence them into changing their minds about donating their organs, as they find the high chance of getting exploited too risky. This causes misunderstandings about organ donations and deters individuals from donating their organs, drastically reducing the number of donors. In the end, the scammers’ consequences led to less people being willing to have their organs harvested, which negatively impacts organ donation.

In addition, another scam that social media inadvertently facilitates is organ trafficking. The level of anonymity and privacy provided by social networking sites can be exploited by organ traffickers when they use them to connect with potential buyers and sellers discreetly. According to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), approximately 10% of all organ transplants, including lungs, heart, and liver, are conducted using trafficked organs with kidneys being the most commonly trafficked organs in illicit markets. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that over 10,000 kidneys are trafficked annually worldwide, which is equivalent to an alarming more than one kidney per hour. Though 10% may not seem like much, when compared to the average waiting times for organs in developed countries, it becomes extremely significant. In the United Kingdom, the average wait times range from 2 to 3 years or even longer. In Canada, the average wait time for a kidney is estimated to be 4 years, with some individuals waiting up to 7 years. Thus, it can be concluded that these disadvantages have the potential to possibly outweigh the advantages, which is why they must be dealt with as urgently as possible.

The second negative effect is that while the boon of flexibility and interaction offers a greater chance for the organ donor appeal to go viral, it also brings along the added opportunity for disinformation and misinformation to spread. Disinformation is news that is intentionally spread in bad faith, while misinformation is news that is spread innocently although unknowingly incorrect. The imposing threat of online incivility, hijacking of narrative, and misrepresentation are also considerable risks that should be monitored when disseminating important information online. Research has shown that humans are generally inept at detecting fake information. This, along with the fact that fake news often looks like real news, leads us into thinking that what we are reading is true. Moreover, when sharing information online, we tend to give very little scrutiny, which could result in us sharing false information or missing out key details. Consequently, it is easy for us to unknowingly circulate misleading information that can be both detrimental towards the recipient’s confidence, as well as public perception and trust towards organ donation.

To sum up, while social media does have a handful of positive effects like the ability to rapidly spread awareness on organ donation, it can have many harmful effects like discouraging individuals from considering organ donation or causing them to have unfounded concerns and fears. To combat these negative effects, it is crucial that we take extra precautions and promote accurate and verified information from reliable sources. Additionally, it is important that we critically evaluate information before sharing it to others in order to ensure its accuracy and credibility.

References

1. How organ transplants work, Zawn Vilines, 2 July 2019

2. https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s& source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjYy6DH9Yz_AhUvd2wGHY_mDgEQFnoECAgQAw&url=https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325631

3. The Facebook Effect: Social Media Dramatically Boosts Organ Registration, n.a., 18 June 2013

4. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/ the_facebook_effect_social_media_dramatically_boosts_organ_donor_registration

5. List of diseases treated by transplant, n.a., n.a.

6. https://bethematch.org/patients-and-families/before-transplant/choose-a-transplant-center/ list-of-diseases-treated-by-transplant/

7. Social media and organ donation: Ethically navigating the next frontier, M. L. Henderson, K. A. Clayville, J. S. Fisher, K. K. Kuntz, H. Mysel, T. S. Purnell, R. L. Schaffer, L. A. Sherman, E. P. Willock, E. J. Gordon, 25 July 2017

8. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajt. 14444#:~:text=Social%20media%20communities%20magnify%20and,potential%20donors%20and%20transplant%20candidates.

9. An Unexpected Tale of Friendship Amid Paired Organ Donation, Meredith Mann, 27 September 2022

10. https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2022/september/an-unexpected-tale-of-friendship-amid-paired-organ-donation

11. Social Media and Organ Donation: Pros and Cons, Priti Meena, Vivek B. Kute, Vinant Bhargava, Rishita Mondal, Sanjay K. Agarwal, 26 December 2022

12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10185012/

13. Number of global social network users 2017-2027, S. Dixon, 13 Feb 2023

14. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/

15. Organ Trafficking: The Unseen Form of Human Trafficking, n.a., 26 June 2018

16. https://www.acamstoday.org/organ-trafficking-the-unseen-form-of-human-trafficking/.

17. Organ scam make a killing, arrests are just tip of iceberg, Raj Shekhar, 3 June 2022

18. https://m.timesofindia.com/city/delhi/organ-scams-make-a-killing-arrests-are-just-tip-of-iceberg/amp_articleshow/91972057.cms

19. Social Media and Organ Donation – A Narrative Review, Gopal Basu, Sanjeev Nair, Sibel Gokcay Bek, Prashant Dheerendra, Krishnam Raju Penmatsa, Karthikeyan Balasubramanian, Aakash Shingada, Arvind Conjeevaram, April-June 2021

20. https://journals.lww.com/ijjt/Fulltext/2021/15020/Social_Media_and_Organ_Donation___A_Narrative.11.aspx

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2023 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health). To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg