Earlier this week, my friend Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet and American Life Project wrote a provocative post focusing on whether it was useless to focus on “Health 2.0” technologies like blogs, mobile and social networks when most people are resistant to change. She acknowledged that people may change their health behaviors for the better in the short-term, but when it comes to long-term behavior change, nothing seems to be working.

The post has generated a firestorm of commentary from across the Web and over the past couple of days I’ve taken the time to read a good amount of it. As I thought about how I would respond to this question, I began to wonder if we are asking the right one. I think the frustration Susannah highlighted has very little to do with technology and a lot to do with anger over human nature. Instead of asking: “What’s the point of focusing on all these fancy tech tools?,” the person who left a comment on Susannah’s post might as well have been asking, “What’s the point of doing anything period!” In fact, I think the sub-text of this question is: “People are stubborn and a little lazy. We keep on telling them not to slowly kill themselves, but they ignore our advice. It won’t matter if we use mobile, Facebook or Twitter to reach them, we’ll just get the same result. At some point, you have to wonder if we should just give up.”

Yes, this is the question, health marketers, public health communicators, social marketers, pharma marketers, data mavens (and others). Should we give up?

You see, I’m as tuned in as anyone to the steady march of technology. However, I never believed that the Internet, mobile phones, Twitter or Facebook would save the world – or make it more likely that people would change their behaviors. Instead, I recognized that technology, like anything else is an enabler. Media technologies make it easier to reach people, but it won’t make them change. No, a person has to want to change for change to happen. And, change often happens because the person thinks it will benefit them in some way.

A few years ago, I took a look at an initiative run by the Association of Black Cardiologists designed to decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke in African Americans. The initiative had a simple, but provocative name and message: “Children Should Know Their Grandparents.” ABC urged people to change their ways, not for themselves, but for those they loved. This project was launched before YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace were on the scene. However, if it were, I think it would have a major impact.

Yes, we don’t do a good job getting people to change their behaviors over the long-term. But, I don’t think we should despair. Instead, we should focus on recognizing what works and ensuring we spread the message of success far and wide.  In the end, we should use whatever gets the job done — whether it be Facebook or a face-to-face meeting.

Susannah, it’s hard as heck to change behaviors, but I’m not ready to give up. I’m glad you aren’t either.

(P.S. anyone interested in how we can change behavior over the short and long term should study the CDC’s VERB Campaign. Click here for a case study on this initiative published on our knowledge community, Living the Path.)