post also by: Mathew Birnbaum (Green)
There is nothing better than an afternoon filled with reading other people’s depressing problems and Google Groups has the best, most depressing stories out there! My fellow coder and I stumbled across a group called alt.support.marriage where we heard the heartfelt story from Bob Thompson, a 31 yr old male. (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.marriage/browse_thread/thread/63d9fa48b00895e4/5765eede5e903c3f?lnk=st&q=midlife+crisis#
Bob has been married to his current wife for four years and has two children. His message and “cry for help” pertained to his recent failing marriage which subsequently coincided with increased financial stress and complications concerning his second child’s birth.
After analyzing 20 messages within this marriage support group—using the coding and model of Braithwaite’s study—my partner and I discovered the following results:
% inter-rater reliability:0.8666667
frequency % of msgs
Information 19 0.95
Tangible assistance 1 0.05
Esteem support 13 0.65
Network support 3 0.15
Emotional support 11 0.55
Humor 5 0.25
We accumulated an inter-rater reliability of 86.7%, a score slightly higher than reliability score found in the Braithwaite study—80%. This small difference may be due to the fact that unlike the original study, the several elements of social support (information, tangible assistance, etc.) were not further dissected into smaller subcategories(i.e. advice, referral, situation appraisal, etc.). Additionally, our examination of social support found a much higher percentage of information support, 95%, when compared to Braithwaite’s finding of 31.3%. This is in agreement with Cutrona and Suhr’s optimal matching model (OMM), which states situations deemed more in the control of the individual, will warrant more information social support. Bob’s failing marriage can be viewed as more in his control opposed to the disability situations which Braithwaite dealt with. Even Bob’s message title outright called for help and information—the actual title cannot be reproduced here due to its somewhat crude language. However, unlike OMM, there was still a relatively high percentage of Emotional support, 55%, similar to the findings in the original study, 40%. Despite conflicting with OMM, this finding does make intuitive sense because some group members responded to Bob saying it was “not his fault” and out of his control. These responses focused on how Bob’s depressed wife caused the stress on their marriage and that Bob is just feeling the circumstantial wrath. We also found results similar to Braithwaite concerning tangible assistance and network support. Specifically for network support, our findings agreed with the study’s notion that simply being an active member of these support groups provided a good amount of network support in itself. “Members met their needs for network support simply by participating in Support Network. Therefore, members did not need to make network support the object of their message” (Braithwaite, pg. 143).
Walther and Boyd’s four dimensions of attraction to online support also are evident in the case of Bob and his long list of concerned support group members. The social distance dimension allowed Bob to have access to a much larger pool of resources and individuals. This lager scope potentially contained individuals with greater expertise and knowledge in the subject of failing marriages compared to Bob’s immediate group of friends and family. However, this element of social distance, in both our and the Braithwaite study, may have partially caused the low rates of tangible assistance. It is difficult to promise and initiate tangible support with the social distance present in CMC support groups. Additionally, the notion of access was very prominent in the support group. The times of when the posts were made are recorded which showed messages and responses spanning the wee hours of the night and morning. It can be very comforting to receive a consoling message from CJ at 3 in the morning rather that having to wait to the next morning when it is considered a more appropriate time. The concept of anonymity online was also an important factor in that it allowed Bob to be very honest and open about his situation and in turn allowed people to respond with honest opinions and advice. Anonymity is a dimension of attraction to online support groups because it removed pressure for individuals to censor their comments. For example, there may not have been as much humor in people’s responses if they had been identifiable to others in the support network. The fourth dimension, interaction management, was an apparent attraction to online support because there was no pressure to respond immediately. Users have the ability to read through already posted messages, and comment whenever they choose to do so. Although this may interrupt the flow of messages, it gives people more time to put more thought into their responses.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Assignment 8: Walther and Boyd not perfect
Entry by: Ariel Tassy and Peter Thompson
Table and example links at the bottomAfter coding our 20 different Support Network messages, we entered our data into the spreadsheet and looked at the frequency and percent of messages for each category. The category that appeared the most was information. Many of the messages we read had some sort of advice or facts that the writer was trying to get across to the original person who posted the message seeking help. This was the most common type of post. Next was esteem support, but only having about half of the percentage that information had. Many of the posts also included people trying to validate the person seeking help’s feelings and reactions. Comments like these were often used, “Your right to feel that way, I understand where your coming from”. The next most used category was network support. After that was humor. It was interesting to see how much humor was actually used to make the person seeking help feel better. Many of the messages that did contain humor used sarcasm. Last was tangible support with zero messages. Our inter-rater reliability had a value of 0.73.
Our findings differed somewhat from what Braithwaite found. In the Braithwaite article the category that came up the most often was emotional support. After that was information support, esteem support, network support, and then tangible assistance. We found much less emotional support than did Braithwaite. However like Braithwaite, we did find the network and tangible support being used less frequently then the others. Another interesting part of the Braithwaite article was the Humor section. Similarly to us, Braithwaite found that many messages included sarcastic humor. He also says that the messages that did include humor were sometimes confused and hard to interpret. This is something we definitely discovered while coding the messages. Messages that included some type of ironic or sarcastic humor were the hardest to code and interpret. Maybe the fact that we stumbled upon quite a few humorous messages affected our results because we confused the message and could not correctly code it. Another reason why our results could be different is because although the guidelines for each category is laid out in the article, it was often difficult to sometimes decide exactly what type of support was occurring, and this not only caused a lower inter-reliability but also could be why our results somewhat different from Braithwaite’s’.
When comparing our results with other theories and points brought up in class it is very interesting to see where our findings came into conflict with the results. What we found neither confirmed or negated the four dimensions of attraction to online social support that are brought up by Walther & Boyd (2003). It was actually very interesting to see that none of the dimensions held up on a consistent basis, some even countered others just by the nature of them.
The first dimension, social distance, is that people appreciate the distance of the internet that allows a greater audience and in turn a greater expertise. This was clear in most of the interactions. However, in one talking about ADHD/OCD/TS in their kids, two women were complaining that the large scope was making it hard to find people who know about the
The next dimension of anonymity was the most consistent. People generally would not post information relating to their true, not online, identity or contact information. Occasionally an email would be put up, or a potentially real sounding name, but there were no guarantees that those posts were those people.
Interaction management is the ability that users appreciate, to carefully construct and craft their messages. Some people would clearly have well written explanations, but because of anonymity, some people would clearly not think through their responses, we will cite numerous typos in the shortest, most aggressive or emotional responses as evidence.
The last dimension called access was clearly the one solid piece that people stood by. There would be entries from all times of day, even responses to comments from months prior.
One more idea we will relate to is what Wallace brought up in her book. The idea is that people in “real life” are less likely to help someone in need when there are more people around. There is a diffusion of responsibility. Online however, it appears that the decreased “noticeability” and lack of non-verbal cues from other people make someone more willing to help out another in need. This was clear just be the threads we found always had a bunch of responses with many opinions showing that people did make an effort to help, even if they didn’t do much or made it worse.
Table:
| | % inter-rater reliability | 0.733333 |
| | Frequency | % of messages |
| Information | 16 | 0.8 |
| Tangible assistance | 0 | 0 |
| Esteem support | 9 | 0.45 |
| Network support | 1 | 0.05 |
| Emotional support | 6 | 0.3 |
| Humor | 2 | 0.1 |
the first 10 responses in this link
the responses from spartacus and agaw.buhay and omprakash1 in this link
The sparticus response in this link
The XcitableOne and nKnisley responses in this link
The morph grrl response in this link
The Sue H, Jane Pall and ATeased 5941 response in this link
Assignment #8: Divorce Support
*Note: This study was also done by Emily Meath (Green) and Carlos Molina (Red).
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:
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
Assignment 8 -- Reflections on Spermazoids
Kayla Thomas: Purple
Jason Feldman: Red
Jason Feldman: Red
We analyzed a Google group in a forum for loneliness. What began as a simple board, where lonely individuals would offer advice to other lonely individuals, quickly became a philosophical discussion of existentialism and clarification on misconceptions of ‘dark matter.’ Our results were not consistent with Braithwaite’s findings. We assert that the reason for this inconsistency is largely due to the fact that the messages we analyzed were responses to an abstract mental and social problem rather than responses regarding an actual physical disability.
We focused on two main threads within one group forum. The first thread centered on anonymous group members responding to another member’s specific problem. This problem involved losing a summons for jury duty and corresponding doctor excuse slip. The writer also self disclosed intimate details about the death of her partner, and her emotional response to this situation. This thread contained 5 of our messages. The second thread was entitled ‘Darwinism.’ Quite interestingly, the posts had absolutely nothing to do with the principles of Darwinism. The topic was considering one’s purpose and impact on the universe (with special attention paid to ‘dark matter’, ‘spermazoids’, and conceptions of god). This group included the rest of our 15 posts.
Neither of these threads, especially the second one (which was the subject of the majority of our analysis), required the type of emotional support necessary in a group such as the one Braithwaite studied. Whereas the messages in Braithwaite were chalk full of empathy, understanding and encouragement, the posts in the first thread were primarily concerned with offering advice or referral. This advice typically was very practical in nature, and involved explaining the various ways this person could resolve the issues that were troubling her. The second thread also contained information support, but more along the lines of situation appraisal and member teaching based on individual perspectives. We also had substantially more posts that contained esteem support. This can be explained by the fact that topics in the second thread were often centered on validating ones self-worth and purpose.
Due to the fact that we analyzed only a limited number of messages, we did not find messages that contained either tangible or network support. This is not necessarily inconsistent with Braithwaite because the percentages of these two message categories were relatively small, and thus his results can be explained by his larger sample size. We also found a substantial amount of humor. However, these results could be more reflective of our own interpretations of posts rather than any comic intent by the authors.
Our results are consistent with Wallace’s theory about the effect of numbers in an online environment. Wallace’s theory asserts that greater numbers of people are less likely to help or offer support in face to face settings, but with decreased social presence online, individuals feel more inclined to help. Wallace suggests that the reason for this is that in the absence of visual cues associated with a face-to-face environment, we do not base our reactions on the reactions of others. Furthermore, individuals may feel more responsible and obligated to help because increased social distance creates a more one-on-one feeling. Members of a group may not be as aware of other capable members – so they more readily offer help. We noticed that both threads contained advice or information that was repetitive, implying that many group members felt obligated to offer support, reply to posts, give advice, etc.
Messages 1-5
Messages 6-20
Sunday, October 28, 2007
#8- I'm the "Other Woman"
In this study we focused on a thread relating to polyamory. This thread starts off with the writer, Danette, discussing her current situation and seeking out support and advice. She begins by telling readers about how she is the "other woman" in a somewhat traditional affair which has been going on for over two years now. Danette’s lover is not legally married, but has been living with another woman for a decade. Danette has begun to accept this fact, but has feelings of jealousy and seeks advice and “words of wisdom”.
After reading all 20 messages and coding each message with 1 (if quality is present) and 0 (if quality is not present) on the topics of information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, emotional support and humor, we found an inter-rater reliability figure of 76.667%. This credibility of this figure affirms Braithwaite’s findings, in which he also says that an inter-rater reliability figure of above 70% is trustworthy. The coding was done independently by 3 coders and through the study we were able to capture the interactive quality of social support in this online group.
The first category, informational support is inclusive of advice, referrals to experts, situational appraisal, and teaching. Tangible assistance encompasses loans, performance of a directed and indirected task, active participation, and expressing willingness. Esteem support includes compliments, validation or relief of blame. Network support is encompassing of access and presence of companions. Finally emotional support is anything that ranges from relationship, physical affection, confidentiality, sympathy, understanding or empathy, encouragement, and prayer perhaps.
If we analyze the statistics of each of these categories we find the following:
| | | | frequency | % of msgs |
| Information |
| 20 | 1 | |
| Tangible assistance | 0 | 0 | ||
| Esteem support | | 8 | 0.4 | |
| Network support | | 0 | 0 | |
| Emotional support | 12 | 0.6 | ||
| Humor |
|
| 2 | 0.1 |
As affirmed in Baithwaite’s findings, and seen through our study, we say that emotional support and esteem support were most wide-spread in support threads. Our finding for esteem (8) was significantly lower than that of the study on disability (18.6). This may be due to the fact that polyamory is not widely accepted and esteem support may not be offered as readily. Also, in contrast with disability, polyamory is a lifestyle choice, so people are somewhat responsible for their current situation, potentially decreasing sympathy. This may also be the reason network support was not offered: support groups are often used for people in a situation they could not help; it’s harder to refer someone to an expert on affairs than it is a disability support group. In addition, this online group is already a part of a network of online users and another network may not seem necessary or present in the case of polyamory. Tangible assistance was not present as well. This is probably because as Braithwaite discussed, in a computer mediated environment, it is harder to provide tangible assistance than in a face to face environment. Furthermore, information is an obvious characteristic of all support groups since many people enjoy giving advice when they are offered the opportunity.
Our study also confirmed Walther's theory about online support. Walther countered Wallace's assumption that the increased number of people present in the online community would decrease the help received since there would be a diffusion of responsibility as well as a decrease in "noticeability." Online, Walther found that there would be an increased response to support due to factors other than numbers, such as social distance and anonymity. Social distance leads to a greater availability of expertise since the online network is so large. In this case, Danette was able to seek out advice from other poly's all around the globe and was not confined to her physical location. Many of the respondents to her post made statements such as "good to know I'm not the only one" and "welcome to the club." These are not likely statements she would hear from others in her immediate area. In addition, the anonymity factor may as a whole allow all the members to participate in this support group because they are not really known by the other members even if their information is out there for them to be contacted, i.e. e-mail address and name. Thus, members were able to give information and advice from confiding about past or current experiences without worrying about judgment which would surely be present in a face to face situation. Thus, our own findings validated those of Braithwaite's and supported Walther's theory.
The link to this thread is: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.polyamory/browse_frm/thread/c01cecbfbbaaf5/50bd741840d7c8c1?tvc=1&q=cheating+relationship#50bd741840d7c8c1
My partners were Christina Reda (brown blog) and Heena Kamdar (yellow blog).
#8: Help! I'm raising a child!
For our assignment, Alice and I decided to examine posts that dealt with raising children. The first group we examined was misc.kids, where we found two threads to evaluate. The first thread we evaluated was originally posted by Sue, a mother trying to find ways to get her ten-year-old daughter to sleep in her own room. Sue was frustrated in constantly having to assuage her daughter’s fears. The second thread in misc.kids that we evaluated was by “funmum,” a mother who was bored of entertaining her two-and-a-half-year-old with the same activities every day; thus, she asked for advice as to new activities they could engage in. The last thread was in the group alt.support.step-parents. Phil, a father to thirty-month-old twins and a stepfather to a nine-and-a-half year old, was having issues with his wife as to how much of a role he should have in disciplining his stepdaughter, with whom he had lived since she was three years old. Phil wanted to know other people’s experiences in disciplining their stepchildren.
In evaluating the posts, we got these results:
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.9333333 | | ||
| | | | frequency | % of msgs |
| Information | | 20 | 1 | |
| Tangible assistance | 0 | 0 | ||
| Esteem support | | 4 | 0.2 | |
| Network support | | 1 | 0.05 | |
| Emotional support | 2 | 0.1 | ||
| Humor | | | 5 | 0.25 |
One reason that informational support messages dominated the threads may have been because of the online environment. According to Braithwaite, “information support…is most useful and prominent when the recipient can control the situation and put the information to use.” The original posters were all parents who could easily make use of the advice that other posters gave them. Indeed, the original posts were all focused on getting information and advice rather than any other support.
Even though emotional support was highly prevalent in Braithwaite’s study, we did not find many instances of it. Braithwaite asserts that “emotional support is more likely to be given when the recipient is experiencing distressful circumstances that are not subject to his or her control. This type of support can promote comfort and healing in such circumstances.” Contrary to Braithwaite’s observations of Support Network, Alice and I studied an environment where parents did have control over their situations; thus the need for emotional support was lessened. Indeed, parents did not seek “comfort” or “healing”; they were simply searching for possible solutions to their problems. Their posts concentrated on getting the information that they wanted rather than fulfilling emotional needs.
Esteem support was third in terms of message frequency, which matched Braithwaite’s analysis. Posters sometimes validated the original poster’s experiences. For instance, with Sue’s post about her daughter refusing to sleep alone, one poster identified with Sue’s frustration by saying, “I can see how you [Sue] would be over it!” With esteem support, posters aimed to lift the original posters’ spirits by validating their feelings and experiences.
Our findings for messages related to network support and tangible assistance were similar to those of Braithwaite. As Braithwaite mentioned, the low number of network support messages may be attributed to the fact that “members met their needs for network support simply by participating” in social networks in the first place. Because they are already engaged in a support network, they do not feel an urgent need to expand their networks. Tangible assistance was unseen in our study. Braithwaite attributes the lack of tangible assistance to the “lack of physical proximity of the participants to one another.” Because participants may be on opposite ends of the globe, tangible assistance is difficult to offer unless participants are willing to make the effort to meet each other.
Humor ended up being the second most frequent type of message that we found in our evaluations. Braithwaite notes that humor can be used “in self-depreciating ways, in sarcastic ways, and as a way to diffuse tension and decrease discomfort in early stages of relationships.” Self-depreciating and sarcastic humor were certainly evident in the posts that we examined. As a response to Phil’s concerns about how much influence he should have in disciplining his stepdaughter, one poster described her experience in raising her own stepdaughter. In mentioning how she and her husband were stricter than her stepdaughter’s biological mother, the poster said, “Somehow SD [her stepdaughter] has survived the trauma of being raised by us!” By employing humor, posters were able to build bonds with the original poster.
The four dimensions of attraction to online social support, established by Walther and Boyd, tie in neatly with our analysis of the parenting support threads. The social distance factor means that the parents feel more inclined to ask for advice in these threads because they feel there must be someone with expertise in the vast number of people connected to these threads. At least one of them will have a solution to whatever problem presented. Indeed, parents were eager to find solutions to the original poster’s problems.
Furthermore, anonymity, both perceived and real, promotes participation from both people with questions and people with solutions to come forth. People with questions do not feel embarrassed to ask their questions because they are not likely to be judged by people that they actually know in real life. People supplying answers feel more secure knowing that even if their answers are wrong, there is virtually no way they have to own up to the responsibility.
Even though a lot of the messages are not carefully crafted to create specific impressions (many messages have typos in them), interaction management is still an important factor. The messages can be read at one’s leisure, and parents don’t feel obligated to stick around and answer other people’s questions. In fact, a lot of the threads have a hit-and-run feeling to them; posts are often short and concise. Furthermore, anyone with a question can start a thread to get solutions, and that person may then return to dormancy (“lurking”) after he or she gets enough information.
Walther and Boyd’s final factor is access. For parents, it is important and comforting to know that no matter what time of the day they post their question, someone is likely to see it and answer it—someone is always awake on the Internet. Posts were usually answered in a timely manner; some responses to the original post came in as quickly as a few minutes.
Members of group: Alice Choo (green blog) and Yang Zhang (purple blog). Blog cross-posted to both both green and purple blogs.
Threads:
Sue’s post
Funmum’s post
Phil’s post
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.step-parents/browse_thread/thread/4dfff213af102230/a894452e07116c68?hl=en&lnk=st&q=child+raising#a894452e07116c68
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