The characteristics of the use of twitter by beginners: Study of the applicability to the e-healthcare

Although social network services (SNS) have high possibility as a communication tool, there are many problems as to the use of e-healthcare. It has too many functions and has difficult human interfaces for beginners. Moreover, how introducing a user to an SNS and retain the user´s motivation are important issues. Twitter, an SNS that has rapidly advanced in Japan, was selected as the research target for this paper. The numbers of following, followers, sent and received messages of beginners have been observed for four weeks since their first day of Twitter usage. The result clarify that half the number of beginners close or stop the using Twitter, because they feel that it is difficult to use or can not comprehend its mechanism. To use Twitter as e-healthcare system, it is necessary for the beginners to understand the importance of increasing the numbers of following and followers or to be prepared an automatic mutual registration mechanism of users within each theme group.