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Facebook, a social media web tool, is used by millions of physicians. Physicians use Facebook to chat with friends, keep track of social conference attendance, and celebrate scientific successes. Despite the availability of several eLearning technologies, Facebook looks to be one of the most promising teaching platforms since physicians often reply fast to discussions and are comfortable enough in their "space" to share their information and ideas. In this section, we assessed Facebook's effectiveness as an attractive instructional tool in one year time.
The ISN education Facebook group was chosen to evaluate the Facebook platform as an educational tool because it has strict roles for members to participate in. We compared the growth in interest in 3 months during 2023 compared to same period in 2022, as regard the group's engagement in educational activities has been estimated in terms of the number of posts, engagement in terms of new members, and active members.
ISN Education's Facebook account had a total of 2740 members in 2022 increased to 3093 in 2023, with a monthly growth rate of 3%, percentage of males decreased to 56.6% from 58% and improvement of female percentage to 43.6 from 42% in 2022 (Figure 1). Analysis of the engagement in 90 days revealed 60 post in comparison to 51 posts in 2022, all of which focused on the most recently published papers. The posts attracted active members from 11 countries compared to 10 countries in 2022 (Active members (2023/2022) Egypt=334/301,India n=308/294, Mexico n=253/236, Saudi Arabia n=141/135, USA n=125/125, Philippines n=99/87, Pakistan n=74/66, Bangladesh n=78/65, Peru n=62/61, UK n=67/61, Tunesia=62).
Facebook has a growing potential to be a learning tool, its limitations it has a geographical distribution zones.