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
2 comments:
Hey Kathryn and Eric
First, I think that your results seem pretty predictable to what can be expected. Therefore, I want to expand and think about why we could have guessed that more informational support as opposed to emotional support as Braithwaite predicts. Personally, I think that it is because of the anonymity and distance between the Internet users which makes support so great but also limits the tangible and emotional support provided. By just providing informational support and answers about what they can expect, the people who write the original thread can pick and choose what they want to listen to. I think you hit this write on the head in the end of your post so great job! I do feel sorry for the guy -- that's definitely no fun :(
Hey everyone,
I enjoyed reading your post and am glad to see that your results came close to Braithwaite. My own results and those of the people that I commented on last did not support Braithwaite. I can see why they would in your case when compared to ours though. The situation that coded messages for would invoke a sense of sympathy for the man involved since he could be seen as a victim of the whims of his wife. I liked how you stated that online support can be conducive to some types of support and not others. I think that it is pretty difficult to offer tangible support online unless you are talking about how to build or fix something.
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