Current university students have grown up in a world completely ruled by new technologies and social media (SoMe). Many of them, such as Instagram or Facebook, are used as additional tools during the educational process of many university degrees, especially for image-based disciplines including radiology, anatomy and pathology, among others. Nevertheless, the role of SoMe during learning processes in basic subjects such as Human Histology has not been deeply studied, with very few reports in the bibliography. The aim of this work was to develop an Instagram account only accessible for second-year medical students from the University of Malaga. This account was used to propose a series of voluntary educational activities as a complement to traditional classroom teaching. The proposal included multiple-choice based-image questionnaires, description of histological images, and schematic diagrams about the subject contents. Furthermore, a section where students can share their own images taken during the laboratory practices and interact with their classmates was included. 85.6% of the students enrolled in Human Histology 2 agreed to participate in the platform. Most of them (99.5%) welcome the initiative and considered it as an appropriate instrument for improving their final marks. Specifically, 68% of the student body regarded the multiple-choice questionnaires as the most useful activity. Comparing the marks of the final exam (without considering other evaluation activities), the differences between those students who participated in the activity and those who did not were statistically significant (p<0001). There were no significant differences according to the degree of participation. These results evidence that Instagram may be considered as a very useful, easy and accessible tool to improve students’ learning of the Human Histology subject of the medical degree.
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