Assignment 8: They Say That Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...

Tim Scott (Purple) Caton McKenna (Green) Aaron Sherbany (Brown)

Breakups are a difficult experience for many people, and Gutterboy is no exception. When he and his significant other broke up, he turned to an online support group for help. The nature of responses that he received after posting on this website nicely reflected what was found by Braithwaite, Waldron, and Finn in their study on communication of support in computer mediated groups.

In this study, Braithwaite et al. used a coding scheme, comprised of five different categories, to examine patterns between support messages exchanged online. The five categories used in the scheme were information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support. The frequencies at which each of these categories were present within the messages studied by Braithwaite et al. were 31.3%, 2.7%, 18.6%, 7.1%, and 40%, respectively.

When our group examined the nature of messages in online support groups we found our results to be very similar to those of Braithwaithe.

% inter-rater reliability		0.766667
	frequency	% of msgs
Information	12	0.6
Tangible Assistance	2	0.1
Esteem Support	10	0.5
Network Support	0	0
Emotional Support	17	0.85
Humor	2	0.1

Although the actual percentages are different than Braithwaithe’s, the categories that he found in high frequency are the same as the categories that we found in high frequency. Information was frequent (60%), tangible assistance was quite infrequent (10%), esteem support was a common feature of messages (50%), network support was none existent, and emotional support was very prevalent (85%). It is likely that if we gathered our data from a larger sampling of posts, the discrepancy between values we obtained and values Braithwaithe obtained would be even less significant. Percentages for network support may also differ because network support implies physical connection problems, which existed during Braithwaite’s study in 1999, but are becoming anachronistic today.

In addition to the five categories examined by Braithwaite, we also added a new category, humor. In our study we found humor to be present at a relatively low frequency (10%) which may be attributed to a number of things. The most likely cause, however, is that the overall somber mood of Gutterboy’s experience discouraged the use of humor in reply posts.

It is very obvious from looking at this online support group that finding help online is quite easy, contrary to what Patricia Wallace said in her book, The Psychology of the Internet. Instead of corresponding to the ideas presented by Wallace, we found that the results of our study corresponded much more closely with the ideas offered by Walther & Boyd, who presented four features of the internet that make it an appealing place to find support. These features are social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access. The fact that Gutterboy posted online shows that he understands that he is more likely to find support from a wide range of knowledgeable people online, which is the idea of social distance. The concepts of anonymity and interaction management can be seen by examining the posts. It is likely that many of those offering their support in online posts would not be comfortable in doing so face to face. The support messages also show a lot of thought on behalf of the poster, suggesting that they took a great deal of time to craft their post to purvey the message in the way that they desired. The final feature presented by Walther and Boyd, access, is easy to spot in this online support group. Gutterboy posted his story at 3:00 am, and immediately received a number of reply posts offering support. One poster even seemed to have an excellent grasp on the idea of access, as evidenced by the following statement: That's the wonderful thing about email and ngs... somewhere in the world SOMEBODY is awake when you are, no matter what time it is.

Wallace hypothesized that the large numbers of people present online would make it difficult to find support, since it would decrease the effect of the presence of an individual and cause a diffusion of responsibility. After examining an online support group, it is evident that this is not the case. Gutterboy found help when he sought support online, with most of it coming in the forms of emotional support, esteem support, and information. Additionally, the concepts of social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access all worked together to make the internet an ideal place for Gutterboy to find support after his break up. It is these same four concepts that will continue to drive people to seek support in online spaces for many years to come.

Link
Note: Examined the messages from Jacqueline to Nick the Lemming