Commentary on Jones C and Hayter M (2013) Editorial: Social media use by nurses and midwives: ‘a recipe for disaster’ or ‘a force for good’? Journal of Clinical Nursing 22, 1495–1496

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan described media as an extension of man and that each new medium or technology introduces a change to the scale or pace or pattern in human affairs (McLuhan 1994). In 100 BC paper discovery permitted recording of information and stories, the Guttenberg press invention in 1455 encouraged literacy, photography in 1814 permitted visual record keeping and the invention of Morse code in 1835, Telegraph in 1843 and the Telephone in 1876 broke the distance barrier. Film discovery in 1898 and radio in the 1920s provided forms of electronic mass media. Television in the 1950s and Web 1.0 Internet since the 1990s have become common features in people's homes throughout the world. Most recently, Web 2.0 in the 2000s introduced digital participatory media such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Bebo, which have created continuous and instant access to events happening around the world.