We all have habits. We all do things in our own way, at the time we like and at a time that is convenient for ourselves.

Social Media has become a habit in many of our lives; we look at Facebook or Twitter in the morning or the same online news page. There is one major reason behind visiting these sites; you are looking to see what is new. You visit the same pages or social media sites because it has become a habit.

This habit formation I am talking about is extremely prevalent in online communities. Reading GDPUK is a habit to thousands of dentists every day, our members want to see what is new, how discussions have evolved or discuss a piece of dental news that has caught their eye.

Members of a community want to know what people like themselves are doing, thinking, using and reading. The site is constantly evolving and changing on an hourly basis because of the four actions listed above and that is what keeps people coming back.  It is human nature to be attracted to the latest news and find out what your peers thinks about it. We can all think of examples of this, a story on Facebook, the latest football transfer gossip on the BBC sport website or a heated discussion on the GDPUK forum.

This is the amazing advantage of online communities and their constantly evolving nature. The GDPUK forum is an invaluable tool for dentists because as well as reading & learning like in traditional publications, users can also participate and share ideas. The site then becomes addictive and then of course a habit!

What are your habits? Has GDPUK become a daily habit for you? Do you have a daily social media habit?

A survey on NHS Dentistry which was hosted by GDPUK was featured this morning on the ITV Daybreak breakfast programme. 

This morning (16^th January 2014) a survey that was run on the GDPUK forum for the ITV Daybreak Programme was featured as headline news. Link to the ITV news story can be found here and the GDPUK News story here.

Daybreak contacted GDPUK a few days ago and we were able to get the survey posted to the forum within a number of hours. The survey was run in response to the letter posted by Dr Tony Kilcoyne BDS  in the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago, on the “Big Lie”. Only NHS Dentists were able to complete the survey and 340 NHS Dentists, who are all GDPUK members, responded to the survey. This was an amazing response from the GDPUK community and shows firstly this topic is an area many dentists care deeply about and secondly how an online community make things happen on a short time span.  Thirdly it also shows the large audience that GDPUK attracts, the thread announcing the survey has had nearly 900 views and 58 replies within a few days!

The debate and discussion of the state of NHS Dentistry still has a long way to go but we feel proud that we have been involved in the formation of the “Big Lie” letter and also running the survey that was then featured on National TV news this morning. Thanks to Dr Tony Kilcoyne BDS and also the whole GDPUK community who continue to contribute to the forum on a daily basis. We feel it is a great example of a small social media platform, utilising the power of the digital world.

The GDPUK forum is free to join for all dentists and members of the dental profession. Please register here

If you would like to find out how you can engage with this dental community further, please get in touch with This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Video coverage of Tony Kilcoyne on the Daybreak couch can now be viewed here