She sometimes is on Facebook 20 times a day, but Whittni Mitchell-Lloyd prefers a telephone call for some things, such as communicating with researchers at Georgia Health Sciences University about a research program called Puff City.

Advertisement

"The Puff City thing is more of a school thing and we use Facebook for more friends' stuff, so we kind of want to separate school and friends," said Whittni, 16, a junior at Burke County High School.

A study looking at how to help educate high school students in rural counties around Augusta about asthma and smoking has turned up some surprising results: The students much preferred getting recorded or personal phone calls as reminders of when to show up for computer sessions at school. In fact, less than 8 percent preferred getting a message through Facebook, and 15 percent preferred texts, compared with 53 percent who liked the recorded message and 23 percent who preferred a personal call. It was so unexpected it was "shocking," said Dr. Martha Tingen, a professor of pediatrics at GHSU and Georgia Prevention Institute, and co-principal investigator of the larger study now under way.

"It is shocking to me because I think 99 percent of the world believes that Facebook and text messaging is where it is at," particularly with this group, she said.

The communication preference study, which was "nested" into the larger study on asthma and smoking, was to be presented Wednesday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media.

It was actually suggested by Tingen's son, Joseph, who had worked as a research assistant on the first year of the study and was assigned to Thomson High School. Three rural high schools had a mixed group of young assistants assigned to them, and Tingen said it was those assistants who really hit it off with the students and made them want to keep participating.

"They really developed a relationship with them," she said. That might be why they preferred a call.

With the recorded calls, the students didn't have to respond and weren't charged, as they might be for a text.

As for Facebook, the study was communicating that way only with those who had sought out the study's Facebook site.

From a research standpoint, preferring the recorded call "is just a fantastic piece of information for me," Tingen said. Calls can be set up as a large block to go out at a predetermined time, and researchers get feedback as to whether each went through and whether it was picked up by a person or by voicemail, she said.

Now starting its second year, the larger Puff City study seeks to educate students about using their medication to prevent attacks, carrying a rescue inhaler, not smoking or quitting smoking, and avoiding secondhand smoke. The contact preference survey will be repeated after 12 months.

"I'll be very curious to see if we get the same information or if things have changed," Tingen said.