The use of social media art challenges to encourage arts engagement for mental wellbeing in the general population

Social media is an essential component of health promotion, education and communication (Hefler et al., 2020). Social media is a cost-effective health promotion tool, with many benefits including targeted messaging, community education, and functionality to reach both the general population and target populations (Hefler et al., 2020). In Australia, popular forms of social media include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and LinkedIn [Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA), 2020]. In 2022, 83% of the Australian population were active social media users (Statista, 2022a).
Engagement in the arts provides many positive health benefits (Davies et al., 2014) with strong evidence that recreational arts engagement for enjoyment, entertainment or as a hobby enhances mental wellbeing (Davies and Pescud, 2020). The main art forms include performing arts; visual arts, design and craft; community and cultural festivals; literature, and online, digital and electronic arts (Davies and Clift, 2022). The public may participate in each art form by engaging in events and activities. In recent years, this has included social media art challenges such as Inktober, Culture Dance, and @tussenkunstenquarantaine's photo challenge. Social media art challenges encourage participants to make or participate in the arts in response to a creative task, assignment or instruction and share the creation on social media. Social media art challenges include encouraging people to learn a new skill and engage with an online community (Li, 2021). Health professionals should consider the use of social media art challenges as a health promotion strategy conducive to arts participation to enhance community mental health and wellbeing. Via a selection of case studies, the purpose of this article is to provide insight into social media art challenges and the benefits to participants to assist health professionals, policy makers and researchers in their use of social media as a health promotion strategy. This is a novel avenue for encouraging community engagement in the arts for mental wellbeing at a time when globally, the prevalence of mental health issues are increasing (World Health Organization., 2022a). (author introduction) #P4HEwebinarMay2024