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In the second decade of the twenty-first century, social media are ushering a second wave in the evolution of the Web. Very rapidly, applications such as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have risen to be among the most used sites on the Web, re-shaping how humans communicate, learn and live. Mobile communication devices are converging with Internet-based services, penetrating every region of the planet at a speed that dwarfs the growth in the adoption of personal computers or any other preceding technological innovation. These devices can now access hundreds of thousands of applications directly through the Internet, promising to satisfy almost any human need for information and communication.

The exponential pace of evolution of information and communication technology, however, is outpacing the ability of clinicians, researchers, managers and policy makers to keep up. As a …