In this study, we examined the different kinds of support people offer in divorce support groups on Google groups. We chose this subject because the very nature of such groups is to offer support, so we believed that the kinds of support for divorce would represent well the kinds of support people give online in general.
We examined 20 messages in total, deciding whether or not each message contained the following kinds of support: Information, Tangible assistance, Esteem support, Network support, Emotional support, and Humor. Each message was examined and evaluated by each coder (total of three), and then the sum of all three coders' evaluations were tallied. Here are the results:
As can be seen, the inter-rater reliability is exceedingly high at 96.7%, considering only 70% is required for a reliable evaluation. Comparing our results with the results from Braithwaite et. al. gives some interesting similarities and discrepancies. Our results for information, tangibile assistance, and emotional support were all very similar. However, we had a much higher percentage of messages pertaining to both esteem support and network support. However, these differences can easily be explained. Two of the three threads we examined had topics that specifically asked where to find divorce support groups, so many people offered support in the form of network assistance. In terms of esteem support, one of the three original posters for the three threads we examined seemed to have very little self esteem, so most of the posts included assistance in the form of reassurance and reinforcement. One of the other posters felt as though all the support groups catered to childless divorced couples, and some of the posts tried to assure her that she was not "crazy" for feeling this way. Although the Braithwaite study did not give a numerical value for humor, they did mention that it was an "unusually important form of support," which is consistent with our results.
In chapter 10 of her book, Wallace discusses what she calls the “numbers” factor of social support, in which she states that in a larger social community where there are increased numbers, the “noticeability” of each individual seeking support is decreased due to the diffusion of responsibility view, which basically assumes that in a group of people if we see someone that needs help, we will be less likely to give assistance ourselves the larger the group, because it is easier to assume that someone else will take on that responsibility. However, the results we found in our study were not consistent with Wallace’s “numbers” theory, which can be explained the fact that while there are many people online, they are, for practical purposes, invisible to each other, thus effectively reducing the number of individuals in the social community.
On the other hand, our findings were more consistent with Walther & Boyd’s 2003 study, in which they note the four dimensions of attraction to online social support to be social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access. Indeed, the online environment does allow for a greater span of information from people with varied expertise due to the social distance of the online community; there is also the option of anonymity which was prevalent on the group forum in which various screenames were chosen which gave no information about the individual’s actual identity; in the asynchronous forum setting, users are definitely able to craft their messages more carefully and post and respond whenever is most convenient for them; and finally access to these forums is guaranteed 24/7, which is not always available in FtF support.
However, while Wallace hypothesizes that due to the numbers factor, social support would not be as effective online, the type of social support she compares this to is the FtF support which is inherently a type of tangible assistance, which we interestingly found not trace of in our online study. So while Wallace may be right in the fact that one would be less likely to receive tangible assistance online, specifically, she would be right, but that in line with Walther & Boyd’s findings, it seems that the online community provides the space for various types of assistance that may not be as easy to provide in FtF support without providing tangible assistance, so that online people can choose to provide assistance to others on their own terms, and that the online environment is more flexible for providing social support in that respect, which may account for the fact that social support does seem to be quite prevalent online.
Messages 1-11
*Note: we did not evaluate messages 5, 6, 7, or 12
Messages 12 - 19
Message 20
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