9: It’s okay to look…or is it?

Online dating has become a fairly common means by which individuals interact and form relationships. Through various sites, such as Match.com, individuals can meet others with similar interests and potentially fall in love. Although online dating may lead individuals to find their soul mate, it may also lead to problematic Internet use (PIU).

Caplan (2003) describes problematic Internet use (PIU) as problematic behavior relating to spending too much time online. When it comes to online dating, individuals may use the services excessively by spending exceeding normal amounts of time on these sites. They may even visit these sites compulsively, with an inability to control their online activity. Various properties of the Internet as well as users’ characteristics can lead to PIU.

Online dating sites provide individuals with a sense of anonymity, enabling them to interact while their computer screens and the World Wide Web are used as a barrier. Individuals who are self-conscious or have a low self-esteem may be more apt to self-disclose in this environment, allowing them to form relationships with others. The asynchronous nature of online dating sites provides a space where individuals can selectively self-present themselves in their profile, constantly making changes when need be. Since the Internet is easily accessible, individuals are able to sit online browsing users’ profiles for hours searching for the perfect match. Furthermore, these sites allow for interaction and ultimately relationship formation through sending messages to one another. A particularly unique property of Match.com is that it allows users to see when the other user reads their message. This feature may encourage PIU by leading the sender to check back constantly until the receiver has read it.

Wallace (1999) further elaborates on potentially problematic Internet characteristics by applying the concept of operant conditioning to explain why individuals may become addicted to certain online behaviors. Operant conditioning refers to individuals’ likelihood to stick with a behavior when it is rewarded with a variable schedule. Through online dating sites, whenever an individual receives a favorable message from another user they may feel as though they are being rewarded. In order to maximize rewards, individuals will continue working to perfect their profile and continue browsing for potential matches. Wallace (1999) also mentions that maintenance of virtual presence also may lead to PIU. Individuals using online dating websites may feel obligated to constantly check to see if they have new messages and update their profile in order to let people know that they are still a member of this virtual space and still actively searching for a companion.

In addition to Internet qualities, various personal characteristics could make individuals more prone to PIU. Wallace (1999) mentions the locus of control or the degree to which one believes they have control over their circumstances as another characteristic contributing to PIU. Match.com seems to recognize this desired sense of control by stating on its information page, “Match.com lets our members take their romantic destiny into their own hands.” Individuals can actively create and edit their profiles and search for others who fit the mold they are looking for.

Furthermore, individuals who are single may feel a sense of loneliness and enter online dating sites in order to fill this gap. Caplan (2003) found that “lonely individuals are somewhat more likely to feel they can better express their real selves with others on the Internet than they can with those they know online” (p.628). This preference for online interaction leads to excessive and compulsive online interaction which ultimately leads to negative consequences. As an ongoing cycle, this excessive use can then cause more psychosocial problems.

If individuals use these dating sites excessively, they may become more dependent on the ability to “hide” during their interactions. In the case of PIU, online dating can get in the way of other aspects of their life. Perhaps instead of going out and socializing in hopes of meeting someone at a bar, they may choose to stay home browsing Match.com—missing out on face-to-face relationship opportunities. So remember, “It’s okay to look” but PIU may lead you to never stop looking.

Comment 1

Comment 2

Assignment 8: I'm a Blog Addict

Some might consider reading up on topics of interest to be a good thing, others might consider constantly reading up on topics of interest via blogs to be a form of Problematic Internet Use. I personally think reading blogs could potentially lead to PIU.

I am personally obsessed with music. I could, and in fact I do, spend hours on the Internet reading the latest music news. I once heard that enough science research is written in one day than can be read in one lifetime. I think music writing is catching up. I personally love to read BrooklynVegan and Idolator. Since I access these sites on my own, and I read them at my leisure, in my mind I believe I have a locus of control. But truthfully, I don’t just stop reading after one article or 15 minutes, I have to soak in every last word that is written before I can move on to the next thing I need to do. Also, there is an operant conditioning that occurs with sites like these. I constantly click on them in between writing a paragraph in an essay, or browsing other websites, but only on a variable schedule am I rewarded with a new post. Since there’s no telling when I may next see a new post, I constantly click and re-click until a new post arrives. These two major factors (lack of locus of control and operant conditioning) make me a believer that sometimes too much of a good thing, like reading about something I love, can possibly lead to PIU.

On the other hand, I don’t think this form of Internet use really qualifies as psychosocial use, like Caplan may lead one to believe. I don’t read these blogs out of loneliness or a discomfort in interacting in face to face situations, nor do I think the other readers of these blogs do so for those reasons. I think it is strictly interest in music that draws the readers to these posts. These blogs fulfill more of a pleasure affordance than any social discomfort.

Lastly, I’m not so sure there are any unique properties or affordances to these specific music blogs. They follow the typical blog setup: posts, comments, links to other sites that you might find interesting, even a search box, but nothing more that Caplan, Wallace, or any other person studying Internet Addiction would be too interested in.

8: Computer Addiction

Katelyn McClellan (Red)
Saurin Sanghvi (Red)

Considering the theme of the class, and after learning about that man who was addicted to second life, we decided to make computer addiction our google group topic. We were able to find two separate threads about computer addiction. The first thread started with a woman who found her boyfriend was addicted to the computer and was not making enough time for their relationship. Several people responded, some in support and others explaining why he could possibly be on the computer so often. Our second thread started with a person that claimed fewer people are addicted to computers than people who are addicted to drugs. Most group members responded by disagreeing with the author’s message and contended that there are many people today addicted to computers.

The summary of our findings is listed below:


Our findings were somewhat different than Braithwaite. Whereas Braithwaite found in his study of support groups for the disabled that most messages were coded emotional (40%), informational (31%) and esteem (18 %) our messages were mainly informational with few coded as esteem or emotional. One reason our messages were coded less for emotional and esteem support is that many respondents were disagreeing with the original author. In the first thread, many of the responses to the woman with the computer addicted boyfriend were that he was not addicted, it is just their relationship or that his actions were normal and she was incorrect. This type of response does not provided emotional support because they are not supporting or sympathizing with her. Nor is there esteem support because they are not complimenting or validating her. The same type of responses occurred in thread 2 when many respondents disagreed about computer addiction.

Another reason for this difference is mostly likely the topic of the support groups. Braithwaite explains “information support is most useful and prominent when the recipient can control the situation and put the information to use. Perhaps it was because heath problems and disabilities are not fully under the control of the members of the Support Network that emotional support was so prominent.” For our topic of computer addiction, this is something that people can control. Not to mention, many do not consider it a real addiction. As Braithwaite explained, disabilities cannot be controlled and that could be why emotional support was used often in his study.

There were also similarities in our studies. Braithwaite “found humor to be a staple.” We also found humor to be present in many of our messages, especially sarcastic humor. Braithwaite also explained that on overall messages the two coders agreed approximately 80% of the time. Out inter-rater reliability was .825. Our major points of contention were emotional support. We had a difficult time agreeing on what constituted emotional support; especially with the constant sarcasm in the messages. Braithwaite’s study was similar in that the coders only agreed 55% of the time on emotional support messages. Similar to our study, Braithwaite explained that coders found the category to be too broad.

After comparing our findings to Braithwaite, we also Walter’s four dimension of attraction to online social support. The dimensions are social distance, anonymity, interaction management and access. Social distance is appreciation of the greater expertise available in the online network. This feature was apparent in our first thread where the woman explained she turned to the group for help and plans to print their responses to show to her boyfriend about his computer addiction. Anonymity was questionable in our study. Many of the members had fake names such as Sea Wasp, yet others used what appeared to be real names such as Erik Francis. It is difficult to tell if this name is the person’s true identity. Interaction management is the ability to craft messages carefully and read at their own convenience. This was apparent especially in the longer messages with lots of information. It was clear the respondent had to look up certain facts in order to craft such detailed message. Finally access was extremely relevant considering some messages were posted at 3 am, clearly not following the normal daily schedule.

Thread 1:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.depression/browse_thread/thread/abcd0ab423db8a6d
Thread 2: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_thread/thread/e204d0f3a2bca138/2d7948842972a63c?lnk=st&q=addicted+warcraft#2d7948842972a63c

% inter-rater reliability
0.9666667




frequency
% of msgs
Information

20
1
Tangible assistance
0
0
Esteem support

10
0.5
Network support

4
0.2
Emotional support
6
0.3
Humor


1
0.05


For this blog we analyzed Dear Abby’s responses to reader questions and our results were slightly different than Braithwaite’s. The information category appeared most frequently in the messages we analyzed, while emotional support appeared most frequently in Braithwaite’s. These differences might be able to be explained because Braithwaite studied people in online support groups for people with disabilities, while we studied Dear Abby’s responses to readers’ questions, which covered a broad range of categories. Dear Abby also probably tried to be a little bit more objective when answering questions, which would explain why there was more information than emotional support in our data. There was also more esteem support because Dear Abby did a lot of “You’re right to feel this way…” and so on.

In reading a lot of the letters to Dear Abby, we noticed that a lot of people wrote to her expecting her to give nice, supportive replies, which is in line with the Social Distance Theory. A lot of time she did give supportive answers, but when she needed to she was a little harsh with some people, and was sarcastic in one reply (our one instance of humor). A lot of her replies also had links to websites her readers could go on for more information, or phone numbers they could call for help. This differences between our results and Braithwaite’s can also be due to the fact that Dear Abby’s responses, though meant to be helpful and supportive most of the time, were ultimately intended to be published in a newspaper, not an online forum.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/25/LI2005032502583.html

Anne Luck (red) and Brittanie Thompson (purple)

8: Relationship Support

For this assignment, I (I worked alone since I had trouble finding a partner) decided to look at two threads on pretty much the same topic, relationship trouble. One thread was written by a male who was wondering how he could make his female friend more than just a friend and the other was about a wife who was having trouble communicating with her husband on the issue of masturbation. While most of the messages related to the original post, some of the messages were responses to responses to the original message. While I ciphered through the messages to code, I made sure to choose ones that related to the original post in some way.

% inter-rater reliability			0.9916667
			frequency	% of msgs
Information			13	0.65
Tangible assistance			0	0
Esteem support			4	0.2
Network support			4	0.2
Emotional support			2	0.1
Humor			10	0.5

When compared to the results obtained by Braithwaite, they are very different on the surface. Braithwaite found that out of the messages coded, the largest percentage could be classified as lending informational, esteem support and emotional support. My findings were that the largest percentage of the coded messages was lending informational support. The next largest percentages were those related to esteem support and network support. I find these differences in our findings to be very understandable. One of the factors that could have lead to the difference in our percentages as they related to emotional support was my inability to quantify emotional support. As I read through the responses, I found it difficult to classify any of them as lending emotional support as I defined it. I associate emotional support with feelings of sympathy and empathy for the most part. In many of the posts, there was a sense of humor displayed and I found it hard to see these jokes as forms of sympathy or empathy. Another reason for the difference in the percentages is the nature of the posts and the subject matter of the threads. Braithwaite got his results from a disability social support group, while I got mine from support groups on how to deal with the relationship of the opposite gender. I imagine that the majority of the posts that Braithwaite coded were about dealing with and coping with their current situation. It makes sense that the posts would lend much emotional and esteem support. The posts that I coded had to do with someone trying to find out how to change a current situation, though. Most of the posts contained advice on how to make the situation better or simple different and not how to cope with what was happening. It makes sense the majority of theses most lent informational support. Esteem or emotional support seems as though they would facilitate the continuation of the bad habits that made these situations happen in the first place..

I found that the posts I coded supported Walther’s dimensions of attraction to online social support. The subject matter of the threads that I read included intimate details of relationships, especially the one about a wife talking about her husband’s masturbation. I cannot imagine that this person would talk about something so taboo in the presence of her friends and family who would probably know her husband as well. It makes sense that she would spare herself and her husband the embarrassment of divulging their marital problems. Walter’s anonymity and social distance would spare them this embarrassment.

Assignment 8: Addictions

Linda Chu (Yellow Blog) and Selina Lok (Red Blog)

Using Google Groups, we chose to analyze a support group for addiction. We coded the first 20 messages that were of substantial length. Because some threads and messages were short, we looked at seven different threads. Topics of addiction ranged from drugs and alcohol to constant fantasizing to loving unavailable women. Across all cases of addiction, we found similar results for each code. (see the table below)

This coding scheme is based on the Braithwaite study. Information includes support through facts: advice, referral, situation appraisal, and teaching. Tangible assistance includes physical support: loans, performing direct/indirect task, active participation, and expressing willingness.

Esteem support includes compliments, validation, relief of blame. Network support includes helping the person find other resources: access, presence, and companions. Emotional support includes relationship, physical affection, confidentiality, sympathy, understanding, empathy, encouragement, and prayer. Humor lightens the mood with comedy.

In comparison to the Braithwaite study, our study had:

· significantly higher percentage of information,

· similar percentage of tangible assistance,

· similar percentage of esteem support,

· significantly higher percentage of network support,

· and same percentage of emotional support.

The reason for discrepancies is the different study subjects. The Braithwaite study looked at disability support groups, while we looked at addiction support groups. The nature of disability support groups is to help the other people cope with being disabled. This is best accomplished by offering emotional support. A third of the messages contain information because a small portion of the support group will be looking for it. While newly disabled people will likely need information about their disability, the majority of disabled people are those who already have this information. This is true on a smaller scale as well for network support. The nature of an addiction support group is to help other people understand and get over addictions. This is best accomplished by offering information and resources, so more than a third (Braithwaite) of messages contain these topics. (See more results of our study below).

For our study, a large majority of thread responses offer information and a little less than half offer network and emotional support. The least common codes were esteem support and humor. There results make sense when considering the nature of addiction support groups. People in these support groups are looking for help to understand and then get over the addition. Responders know this so they naturally offer:

· helpful resources about the addiction (network support),

· share their knowledge of the addiction (information),

· encourage the person to get over the addiction (emotional support),

· and empathize by sharing their similar addiction experiences (information / emotional support).

The goal of each of these responses is to help the person who posted originally understand the addiction, feel able to get over the addiction, and know way to getting over the addiction.

Our inter-rater reliability was relatively high at .775. Most of our disagreements came from our judgment of emotional support. According to Braithwaite, "Coders found the definition of this category (emotional support) to be too broad." Emotional support, which includes relationship, physical affect, sympathy, etc., is subjective to the coder and some people may categorize a message as sympathetic, while others may disagree.

Wallace’s helping and number factors states that increased numbers online reduce helping behavior due to responsibility and decreases “noticeability.” In our analysis, we did not find support for Wallace’s number factors but found evidence that supports Walther’s ideas about online social support.

In his study, Walther considered factors other than numbers and developed four dimensions of attraction to online social support, social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access. Social distance gives the availability of greater expertise in the larger online social network. In one of the threads, “sytech” was dissatisfied with his current AA recovery group and was seeking to find another recovery group to join. In the replies, many people who lived in the general region offered alternative locations. Although this example only involves people in a generally close area, the online community can actually create a social network worldwide offering much expertise. Also, Walther’s anonymity dimension plays an important role in support groups because in many cases, people want to remain anonymous about their addictions. In the same thread about recovery groups, there are nicknames that include “sytech,” “Blue Moon,” and “Moon Raker.” Individuals within the social support group could give advice, sympathized, and joked around without the fear of their identities being revealed like it would be FtF. In addition, interaction management is important in online support groups. Members want to be able to craft messages carefully, especially when advising others or trying to express similar experiences about addictions. Lastly, the online community offers 24/7 access to online support systems , where members are free to use the support group whenever they want to or need to, as opposed to typical daily schedules.

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3

Thread 4

Thread 5

Thread 6

Thread 7

Assignment 8: Increasing Anorexics Appetites with Marijuana?!

Marli Sussman (Brown Blog), Megan Frink (Red Blog), & Justine Fields (Red Blog)

Marijuana and Anorexia Thread

The thread our group examined was a google group that dealt with anorexia and marijuana. The people on the thread discussed how smoking marijuana increases appetite and how that could possibly cause anorexics to eat more and gain weight. The three people in our group are all girls, are all between the ages of 19 and 20, are all studying either psychology or communication, and are all in sororities. As you can see, all three of us lead very similar lives and as a result had very similar interpretations of the 20 messages we read in this thread.

The cutoff for an acceptable reliability score is .7. Our inter-rater reliability score was roughly .81, making our score more than acceptable. But, Braithwaite’s coding scheme percentages are quite a bit different than some of our coding scheme percentages. The schemes with the biggest differences were information, network support, and emotional support. Braithwaite found that information had a 31.3% presence, while we found it to have a 70% presence in the messages. Braithwaite found a 7.1% presence for network support, while we didn’t find any presence of network support in the messages. Lastly, Braithwaite found a 40.0% presence of emotional support and we only found a 2% emotional support presence. The schemes with the most similarities were tangible assistance and esteem support. Braithwaite found a 2.7% presence for tangible assistance and we found a 3% presence. Braithwaite also found an 18.6% presence of esteem support, and we found a 15% presence. Although two of the percentages were extremely similar, three of the percentages were extremely different.

We believe that our percentages vary from Braithwaite’s because the forum we observed and studied diverges from originally supporting the person who started the discussion to moving more towards being concerned with the accuracy of the content of anorexia on the thread. This shift in topic made our percentages shift in relation to Braithwaite.

Walther & Boyd’s theory of interaction management could also have affected the shift in discussion on this thread. People can spend much time editing what they write before posting and because of that, what they originally intend to say gets reconstructed over the course of their editing. Also, as there are more and more posts on a thread, people don’t keep referring to all of the posts before theirs, they really just look one or two people above to make a new point. Lastly, because the conversation on a thread is a asynchronous, people don’t follow the conversation as coherently as it would be in face to face. Completely new subtopics, related to the overall theme of a thread can be mentioned, and that is acceptable. Due to these characteristics of forums, our results vary slightly in some categories from Braithwaite’s. But, ultimately, the similarity of our group members allowed us to all interpret the messages in the same way.

Assignment 8 - Divorce Support

Our group decided to read messages from a single thread on Google Groups’ alt.support.divorce. The initial post was by a man in a troubled relationship. He and his wife, who told him she thought she was falling for another man at work, were discussing divorce and trial separation. He was concerned about his wife’s actions, the future of the relationship, and what would happen to his son if he and his wife separated.

Our inter-rater reliability was above the conventional standard of .7. We had a reliability .77. With a frequency of 18 (90%), information was the most prevalent type of support in this sequence of messages. This was because a lot of the members of the group had been through similar situations with their significant others. Thus, they were able to give first hand accounts, and alert the man as to what might be coming next. We included the messages posted by the initial user, who was asking for help, because we thought it would be interesting to see if those asking for help, also offered it as well. Therefore, since his few posts were very much about describing his situation, they contained information, and little of anything else. Also very frequent, emotional support had a percentage of .65.

The only type of support to have a frequency of 0 was tangible assistance. This makes sense because these people were communicating via the internet. It is more difficult to offer or give tangible support when the one you wish to help lives miles and miles away, or in these cases, when you don’t know where the person lives.

Our results are relatively similar to Braithwaite’s. She found emotional support to be most frequent, with information as a close second. We found information to be most prevalent, with emotional support as a close second. Both our study and Braithwaite’s observed tangible assistance the least. While network support was at the lower end of the frequency scale in both studies, Braithwaite found that esteem support was more in the middle of the road, whereas we observed esteem support to be as infrequent as network support. We found it very interesting that messages related to disability yielded similar results to messages offering advice about divorce and relationships.

Online support, no matter what the reason, seems to be conducive to particular types of support and not to others. The physical distance between users of the internet prevents much tangible assistance, while increased social distance and lack of visual anonymity lend themselves toward more emotional disclosure.

Kathryn Dewey – Blue
Eric Dial - Green

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.divorce/browse_thread/thread/16aad3dbeaa13738/475ded9c55b2263d?lnk=raot#475ded9c55b2263d

8: Her Stuff and His Porn

My partner and I choose twenty different messages from two different treads within the marriage support group—“I need some advice – His and Her Stuff” and “Pornography Addiction.” While looking for threads in support groups, we noticed that some replies were difficult to understand because of poor English and typing skills. Also many of the replies were simply advertisements not at all related to the marriage support thread.

Wallace found that increased numbers online reduced helping behavior because of decreased “noticeability,” the use of other people to interpret the environment, and a diffusion of responsibility. However, Wallace only focuses on the effect of numbers in helping behavior. Walther and Boyd suggest that it is more than numbers that influence helping behavior in online settings because when a person is online, they do not know exactly how many observers and responders are present. Walther and Boyd (2003) incorporate four dimensions of attraction to online social support: social distance; anonymity; interaction management; and access. Social distance states that there is an appreciation of the greater expertise available in the larger online social network. Perceived and real anonymity increases the ability to avoid embarrassment, thus increasing confidence in providing support. The interaction management dimension states that users appreciate the ability to craft messages carefully when providing support and to read at their own convenience when receiving support. In addition, CMC gives users unlimited access to online support systems outside of typical daily set schedules.

Another study regarding online social support is Braithwaite et al (1999), in which messages in a disability social support group were coded based on information (i.e, advice, referral, and situation appraisal), tangible assistance (i.e. loan, active participation, and expression of willingness), esteem support (i.e. compliments, validation, and relief of blame), network support (i.e. access, presence, and companions), and emotional support (i.e. sympathy, empathy, and encouragement). Aside from these primary coding schemes, humor was discussed.

Our findings primarily supported the Walther and Boyd study because the number of responses to a particular thread did not depend on the actual number of individuals present in the online community. We believe that people were more willing to participate and provide online support due to Walther and Boyd’s four dimensions because users are global (social distance); participants most likely do not know one another, provoking them to provide support (anonymity); online users are able to carefully create messages (interaction management); and online threads allow users to respond, provide, and receive support at their earliest convenience (access).

Our findings did not fully align with the findings of Braithwaite, et al. because we had the ability to choose what support group and threads were investigated and coded. We found that 85% of our messages (the majority) were coded as information because most responses gave advice, provided websites, and steps for coping. Our next highest was coded as esteem support, at 75%. This was apparent in the pornography addiction thread, as this involves a significant amount of self-disclosure. Responders replied without judgment and some even provided personal validation by stating their personal experiences. At a close third, there was a high amount of emotional support in the first thread concerning spousal differences (70%). People were more willing to respond to this topic with empathy and sympathy based on user’s spousal experiences. In the pornography addiction thread, there was a great deal of encouragement to quit the addiction (or make money by producing their own pornography!). We also noticed that a great deal of humor was used within both threads (45%).

This experiment supports the idea that online social support can be very beneficial for all people coping with any type of issue. For instance, we learned a very valuable lesson from this assignment: make your pornography addiction monetarily beneficial by creating your own porn!

% inter-rater reliability			0.8833333
			frequency	% of msgs
Information			17	0.85
Tangible assistance			1	0.05
Esteem support			15	0.75
Network support			3	0.15
Emotional support			14	0.70
Humor			9	0.45

Partner: Josh Navarro (purple)
Thread #1
Thread #2

8 Maladjusted People With Internet Connections

Spencer Dorcik (Red)
Eden Mayle (Red)
Emily Wellikoff (Brown)

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.shyness/browse_thread/thread/62f1a7bdadc4ecd1/d47a91b5a32dce7a?lnk=gst&q=dating+advice+phy#d47a91b5a32dce7a

Our group selected a dating support group found within Google Groups for our examination of support messages. The starting thread was asking, amusingly enough, why a man’s mother’s advice on dating and women seems to be “misleading” and why this seemed to be the case a lot of the time. The support the original poster received ranged from supportive and informative to self-centered and incredibly sexist and derogatory towards women. After analyzing the first 20 responses to the original post, we plugged in our coding decisions and ended up with some interesting and relevant data. Out of the 20 messages, 11 (55%) were coded for informational support while only 4 each (20%) were coded for emotional support and humor. None of the other support modalities received any consensus coding. Our inter-rater reliability was 66%. One of the intriguing aspects of our end statistics was that only 3 messages were coded for more than one characteristic. Most messages only offered information, or only emotional support, or only humor, or nothing at all.

These results compliment the findings of Braithwaite and Waldron (1999), who coded messages in an online support group for the disabled. The largest percentage of their messages consisted of informational and emotional support, while network support and tangible assistance were encountered least frequently. Our results closely mirror these findings, though information was much more prevalent than emotional support in our message corpus. In this respect, our results are more consistent with those of Cutrona and Suhr (1992), who also found informational support most frequently. The similarity of our findings may stem from our examination of a relatively non-emotional group of messages, much like the messages studied by Cutrona and Suhr. In addition, we found support for the optimal matching model which predicts that less emotional support will be found in contexts in which the message recipients can control their situation. On a dating message board, many users are seeking information in the hopes of improving their circumstances, while users in a disability support group might be more inclined to seek sympathy about a situation they cannot change. We also found humor to be as frequent as emotional support in our messages. Some users offered self-deprecating comments, perhaps to convey empathy, while others demonstrated a more lighthearted sense of humor. It seems that humor plays a large role in maintaining the supportive atmosphere found in these online communities. Finally, our inter-rater reliability (66%) fell below the inter-rater reliability demonstrated by Braithwaite and Waldron (80%). This could be because we received less training in identifying details that indicate the presence of various forms of support.

Our results showing that social support within this group was predominantly concerned with relaying informational and, less frequently, emotional support can be rationalized with Walther’s dimensions of support. These dimensions include social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access. For instance, the Internet provides a distance that allows for people to feel disconnected from others and less vulnerable to judgment, resulting in emotional support that often involves personal disclosure. Also, this distance provides for a much larger audience than face to face interactions. If you tell a friend a problem, you will just get social support from that friend, whereas if you post that problem online, you can get informational support from many people, even including experts. Additionally, the Internet allows for anonymity which again increases personal divulgence in the form of emotional support, and increases confidence to provide informational support. Moreover, the Internet allows for interaction management, meaning people can construct messages carefully and with more time, resulting in support that is both informative and sympathetic. Finally, the Internet gives those seeking social support, access that is simply unavailable from other media; thus, information is literally at a person’s fingertips whenever they need it. Walther’s dimensions of attraction are integral to understanding why online social support is mainly informational and emotional.

8: Perusing Support Groups

My partner and I chose twenty different messages from various google support groups. Our results generally followed Braithewaite et al., but accuracy may have been lost since we coded fewer messages than they did.

Just as in Braithewaite et al.’s results, we too seemed to have the most conflict in deciding which messages were emotional because of the broadness of the category. When we first began searching for messages, it was easy to find responses, but as we continued, we noticed that many of the messages were simply links to articles and usually people did not respond to them. Similar to Wallace’s numbers phenomenon, – where in ftf, more people mean less helping and in CMC, there is more assistance since it’s harder to see how many people are present, so you don’t rely on other people’s reaction to the aid – the groups that had more people had more discussion/responses to questions, as opposed to the groups with few people had little or no discussion. Another interesting factor that played in finding messages with more discussion was anonymity and social distance. This not only allowed for wider range expertise available from people all over the network, but it allowed the member to self-disclose more, which provided a greater number of responses that were more interesting and personal.

I found it interesting that we actually had a few messages without information because I thought that almost all messages would provide some sort of information or advice, but that was not necessarily the case. Some messages were solely emotional in providing sympathy, or some were reactions to an anecdote. Unlike Braithewaite et al., where most of their messages were from people with physical disabilities, most of our messages consisted of members with mental disabilities (i.e. – grief, depression, loneliness), which may account for the discrepancy in the percentages of message types.

After reviewing the messages, we found our inter-rater reliability to be 90%, which is 10% higher than Braithewaite’s et al.’s reiliability. This higher reliability may be accounted for because of the lower number of messages analyzed. Our results ranked information first (75% of the messages), emotional support second (50%), esteem support third (40%), humor fourth (20%), and tangible assistance and network support tied for fifth (5%). Whereas, Braithewaite et al had emotional support first (40.0% of the messages), information second (31.3%), esteem support third (18.6%), network support fourth (7.1%), and tangible assistance fifth (2.7%). Not included in their results, was the analysis of humor in messages. We found that there were a significant amount of humor, more so than tangible assistance and network support combined, and most of them were ones that did not have emotional support in them because it is more difficult to show empathy and be humorous at the same time.

Partner - Will Hui (Blue Blog)

Message1 Message2 Message3 Message4 Message5
Message6 Message7 Message8 Message9 Message10
Message11 Message12 Message13 Message14 Message15
Message16 Message17 Message18 Message19 Message20

8: Thinspiration

Following Braithwaite’s study on the types of messages exchanged in online support groups, we decided to code messages found in a “pro-anorexia” Google group. Although one would typically think of a support group as a place where individuals turn to others as a means to work through an illness or disability, this message board was in fact the exact opposite. Instead of providing encouragement or advice on how to defeat anorexia, members of this social group supported others on how to remain thin by any means possible:

“I kinda feel like the whole "pro-ana" scene has really gotten away from whats important. Losing weight at all costs! I feel like people has gone from 'do whatever it takes' to 'its ok to be a little chunky'. It's not ok! It's SO not ok, and I don't want to let myself slip into that mentality."

Braithwaite used Cutrona and Suhr’s (1992) category system of supratypes and subtypes to code messages as containing information support, tangible assistance, network support, esteem support, and emotional support. Since Braithwaite also frequently found humor in messages, this was an additional category we took into account.

Messages that included emotional support involve relationships, physical affection, confidentiality, sympathy, understanding, encouragement, and prayer (Braithwaite, 1999). In Braithwaite’s study, she found that emotional support messages appeared most frequently in support groups, making up 40% of the messages that were coded. In our study, we found that 85% of the messages included emotional support--twice the percentage of Braithwaite's findings. This may be a result of the fewer number of messages we coded for our study. Moreover, since the nature of this forum leads individuals to push others to stick with an anorexic “lifestyle,” encouragement is inherent in the group we analyzed.

Information support includes advice, referrals to experts, situation appraisal, and teaching messages (Braithwaite, 1999). Information support was found in 31.7% of the messages in Braithwaite’s sample. Although our percentage was much higher, at 95% of the messages coded, this could be due to our inclination to selectively choose threads that seemed extremely content based. We were quick to disregard those threads that had few words and little support or advice. Had our research methods been more systematic, our percentage may have more accurately reflected Braithwaite’s results. This too could be due to the nature of the forum, since group members were eager to pass on their own personal tips and suggestions. A great example includes the thread title “Thinspiration,” an idea by one member to each give a different tip on remaining thin--the most extreme post involving “The Ana Commandments."

Messages containing esteem support includes compliments, validation, and relief from blame (Braithwaite, 1999). We too found esteem support messages to rank third in terms of frequency. Validation, in particular, was found very frequently in our discussion group, as members who were posting were supporting an illness that is not traditionally accepted as a positive behavior that should be encouraged. In contrast, Braithwaite was probably more inclined to find esteem support involving relief of blame or complimenting individuals on the way they overcome their disabilities.

Tangible assistance encompasses performing a direct task, active participation, and expressing willingness (Braithwaite, 1999). Network support involves messages that give Information specifically about networks, including access, presence, and companions (Braithwaite, 1999). Both our study and Braithwaite's study found tangible assistance and network support to appear the least frequently. However, in contrast to Braithwaite, we found more tangible assistance than network support, perhaps due to human error in coding. Perhaps the lack of network support is a result of the rarity of the "pro-ana" support network. The members already contributing to the group feel that they and the other contributors are the few that truly understand this way of life and have no need to connect them to others outside of the group. Additionally, tangible assistance in this case was difficult to find most likely because acts of support were more text-based recommendations rather than a means of physical assistance.

After individually coding messages, we discussed our viewpoints before coming to a consensus. Since there were three of us viewing these messages, whenever one had a different viewpoint then another, it led to disagreement and further discussion. Our inter-rater reliability was 90.83% indicating an extremely high level of consistency. Braithwaite similarly found high inter-rater reliability at 80%. Since training and experience both lead to higher inter-rater reliability, our high result may be attributed to previously learning how to accurately classify messages and already doing a practice coding exercise together in class.

Our results can be further analyzed by applying Walther & Boyd’s (2003) four factors: social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access. Social distance would encourage socializing online due to the fact that the Internet is a medium in which individuals could be separated by large distances. The Internet provides a wide space for individuals to find “experts” to interact with and seek support from without geographic boundaries. Anonymity allows individuals to feel more comfortable providing revealing information or seeking help. Since the “pro-ana” messages have a stigma associated with them, anonymity helps reduce the fear of sharing this information as compared to sharing this information face to face with close friends and family. Interaction management involves selective self-presentation, in that the asynchronous environment allows people to carefully pick and choose how they would like to be perceived. This is particularly important in the support group we analyzed since members may be especially self-conscious and have low self-esteems. Access refers to the idea that no matter what time of day or where you are, support can be found on the Internet through already posted material or in a later response to your own request for help. Individuals who encourage anorexia can search to find others who have similar needs.

Authors: Alyssa Ehrlich (red), Randi Pochtar (purple), and Lauren Burrick (yellow)

Support Group: http://groups.google.com/group/pro-ana/

Threads Used: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3, Thread 4

8: Hot flashes, cold tears

New Note 6

For our assignment, we decided to read a few threads on support on menopause (at alt.support.menopause). Our results were similar to the Braithwaite study in that we had mostly information, esteem and emotional support. We did not have any results with tangible assistance or network support.

Information: 18/20
Tangible Assistance: 0/20
Esteem Support: 4/20
Network Support: 0/20
Emotional Support: 5/20
Humor: 6/20
inter-rater reliability: 95%

Some possible reasons for so much informational support was because our assignment focused on medical conditions, and most of the people that made their posts were asking for information, ie. whether to get a second opinion on a medical situation or advice on whether to get a surgery or not.

There was also a lot of emotional and esteem support because these can be difficult situations to deal with. For example, a lot of people needed help on making a decision and others would respond telling them to trust their own judgment (esteem support). Sometimes there would also be people who would mention stories from their friends and others would respond empathizing with their situation. We had no examples of network support or tangible assistance.

There was no tangible assistance because there was little help that people could provide through tangible assistance and also, there were so few people on the group that it would probably be too difficult to travel a far distance to meet each other. Also, there was no network support because there were so few people on the group that they might have known each other already.

Finally, we had a strong amount of humor in accord with the Brathwaite study. This is likely because dealing with menopause is somewhat of a bonding experience for women of older age. In fact, one great post that we found was nothing more than this link: http://www.comics.com/creators/rubes/archive/rubes-20071010.html

We noticed that the people contributing on this group were extremely open because it was an extremely tight network. Even though there were hundreds of people on the group, we saw a lot of the same name several times. This explains the reciprocity that's common on the groups. Also, there's a great deal of anonymity since the only thing that's displayed to identify the author of the post is a vague name (usually only a first name or even vaguer things like "Chakolate" and "HotFlashesColdTears"). This not only enhances anonymity but interaction management as well, seeing as they can choose whatever name they like to, plus they can always use the whole "It's-my-friend-not-me" ruse to hide their real truth from others. Also, in spite of their anonymity, they develop their own personality that's always available (providing access 24/7).

Authors: Mitch Chubinsky (blue), Zak Bell (blue), Ashish Banerjee (red)

Threads that we used:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.menopause/browse_thread/thread/273950388612d4d1/46959ad61f246a15?hl=en#46959ad61f246a15
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.menopause/browse_thread/thread/726e546d763fec18/de4374eca086398e?hl=en#de4374eca086398e
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.menopause/browse_thread/thread/36d51bcb7349cdde/42c1ca08be6ffec8?hl=en#42c1ca08be6ffec8
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.menopause/browse_thread/thread/dfa3ffac75ccc73c/68ad85f01a017eb0?hl=en#68ad85f01a017eb0