On several other occasions, I’ve written about online gaming on this blog, so obviously I find gaming – especially massively multiplayer gaming (MMOG)– to be a very interesting phenomenon. Through these sort of games, players are able to create miniature copies of society, with parameters tweaked to suit their fancies. Wish you could fly? Sign up for City of Heroes and defy physics to your heart’s content. Enjoy the rich lore of fantasy literature? Join the world of Lord of the Rings Online and live out Tolkien’s epic novels yourself.
Problematic Internet use, as it relates to gaming, has also been a favorite topic of the media for some time now. The allure of immersing oneself in another world is so great for some people that they can totally lose themselves. Over the years, people have reportedly lost their jobs and even their lives as a result of gaming. Many have been quick to blame the Internet and the games themselves as the root cause of these problems. These accusations cite the general properties of the Internet as a “corrupting force” on otherwise normal people.
At face value, these arguments appear to have some merit. Online games constitute a synchronous online space, with a audio-visual component that supplements text-based verbal communication. Thus, it is susceptible to what Wallace described as “operant conditioning,” whereby players are rewarded on an inconsistent basis. In most MMOGs, the player controls a character with a numeric level representing his/her accomplishment. The ostensible point of the game is to perform tasks that earn the player experience, increasing that level up to the maximum allowed by the rules of the virtual world. Although at first glance this may appear regular, it actually constitutes a variable schedule: as you progress in the game, the reward of “dinging,” or attaining a new level becomes more and more difficult to attain, and experience-garnering tasks become either more difficult, more rare, or both. Just as you are settling in to your mid-level character, you attain level 20 and the whole game changes.
Despite all of this, Caplan’s model does a far better job of explaining game-related problematic Internet use. That is to say, “problem gamers” are in fact predisposed to problems before they lay a finger on a keyboard. These individuals harbor psychosocial problems, such as loneliness and mild depression, that lower their social confidence. When they join the online world represented by a MMOG, these issues cause them to identify well with the medium, which in turn causes them to shun “real life,” face-to-face situations. This explanation does a much better job of explaining the few isolated problem cases of game-related PIU because it focuses on the underlying personal issues rather than blaming the game. Thus, we can explain why someone may be driven to suicide after losing a virtual job in an MMOG, while still accepting the fact that millions of people play these games every day without any such issues.
Comments:
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
8: Sage Parenting Advice from Usenet
Post by G. Scott Russ (Brown) & Christopher Barnes (Yellow)
For our post this week, we entered the alt.parents-teens newsgroup on Usenet via the Google Groups browser. As the name may suggest, this is a group where parents and teenagers alike go for advice on their relationships with each other. We evaluated two of the conversations from this group, the first was a teenager asking for advice and the second was a question from a parent. Our analysis discarded all messages from the original poster, focusing only on those posted by other users in response.
Combining all 20 posts from both threads gave us these final statistics (findings from Braithwaite in parentheses):
Inter-rater reliability: 83.3%
Information: 19/95% (31.7%)
Tangible Assistance: 0/0% (2.7%)
Esteem Support: 10/50% (18.6%)
Network Support: 0/0% (7.1%)
Emotional Support: 6/30% (40%)
Humor: 0/0% (n/a)
The inter-rater reliability is fairly high, indicating a good level of correlation between our two assessments of the message. This allows us to be fairly confident in the validity and consistency of our results.
Our data roughly follow the same patterns published by Braithwaite, with some notable discrepancies. We feel that these differences arise from the two distinct natures of the analyzed groups. Braithwaite studied support groups for people with disabilities, a group much more centered around empathy and healing. The parent group that we studied was significantly more information-focused; members participated to get clear and specific tips on their own situations, and not to be supported or comforted in general. We noted the same lack of tangible assistance offers and of network support. These message types are much more “higher cost” and therefore their rarity would certainly be expected.
For the most part, posters were (presumably) anonymous to each other. Even when people chose not to use pseudonyms, physical distance likely put them outside of each other’s personal space. However, judging by past posts on the group, there were a number of repeat posters that had sufficient connection to the community to form a viable in-group dynamic.
If you browsed through the links that we provided at the beginning, you may have noticed that amongst this group of “regulars,” one person stood out in particular: R. Steve Walz. In the first thread, his messages were not really directed at the original poster, but at one of the other group members. Considering his actions under the Douglas and McGarty’s model of inter-group dynamics, we can conclude with certainty that his individual identity was salient and that he was identifiable to the group. Since we are considering the in-group here, the identity of “dragonlady,” the target of Walz’s diatribe, was certainly known to him as well. Considering these things, Walz’s non-normative behavior was truly curious. Coupled with his often outlandish propositions, his personality was a true anomaly when set against the otherwise calm and “father-like” demeanor of the group.
For our post this week, we entered the alt.parents-teens newsgroup on Usenet via the Google Groups browser. As the name may suggest, this is a group where parents and teenagers alike go for advice on their relationships with each other. We evaluated two of the conversations from this group, the first was a teenager asking for advice and the second was a question from a parent. Our analysis discarded all messages from the original poster, focusing only on those posted by other users in response.
Combining all 20 posts from both threads gave us these final statistics (findings from Braithwaite in parentheses):
Inter-rater reliability: 83.3%
Information: 19/95% (31.7%)
Tangible Assistance: 0/0% (2.7%)
Esteem Support: 10/50% (18.6%)
Network Support: 0/0% (7.1%)
Emotional Support: 6/30% (40%)
Humor: 0/0% (n/a)
The inter-rater reliability is fairly high, indicating a good level of correlation between our two assessments of the message. This allows us to be fairly confident in the validity and consistency of our results.
Our data roughly follow the same patterns published by Braithwaite, with some notable discrepancies. We feel that these differences arise from the two distinct natures of the analyzed groups. Braithwaite studied support groups for people with disabilities, a group much more centered around empathy and healing. The parent group that we studied was significantly more information-focused; members participated to get clear and specific tips on their own situations, and not to be supported or comforted in general. We noted the same lack of tangible assistance offers and of network support. These message types are much more “higher cost” and therefore their rarity would certainly be expected.
For the most part, posters were (presumably) anonymous to each other. Even when people chose not to use pseudonyms, physical distance likely put them outside of each other’s personal space. However, judging by past posts on the group, there were a number of repeat posters that had sufficient connection to the community to form a viable in-group dynamic.
If you browsed through the links that we provided at the beginning, you may have noticed that amongst this group of “regulars,” one person stood out in particular: R. Steve Walz. In the first thread, his messages were not really directed at the original poster, but at one of the other group members. Considering his actions under the Douglas and McGarty’s model of inter-group dynamics, we can conclude with certainty that his individual identity was salient and that he was identifiable to the group. Since we are considering the in-group here, the identity of “dragonlady,” the target of Walz’s diatribe, was certainly known to him as well. Considering these things, Walz’s non-normative behavior was truly curious. Coupled with his often outlandish propositions, his personality was a true anomaly when set against the otherwise calm and “father-like” demeanor of the group.
Assignment 8
Chris Bostick (yellow)
Mike Andromalos
Online social support has many advantages including, 24/7 access, social distance, interaction management, and anonymity. It is for these reasons that people seek help so often in specialized online communities. Braithwaite, Waldron and Finn broke down social support messages into five categories of information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.arthritis/browse_thread/thread/2a6118110cb78ffa/a3f3eec22bfcebdc?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#a3f3eec22bfcebdc
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.artists.springsteen/browse_thread/thread/1327a262e315bb7b/923041a6e2ec2e7e?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#923041a6e2ec2e7e
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.divorce/browse_thread/thread/e7b919f25d282d20/59e4f1b80eea4b41?hl=en&lnk=st&q=rod+knock+support#59e4f1b80eea4b41
Mike Andromalos
Online social support has many advantages including, 24/7 access, social distance, interaction management, and anonymity. It is for these reasons that people seek help so often in specialized online communities. Braithwaite, Waldron and Finn broke down social support messages into five categories of information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support.
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.7416667 | | ||
| | | | frequency | % of msgs |
| Information | | 12 | 0.6 | |
| Tangible assistance | 2 | 0.1 | ||
| Esteem support | | 8 | 0.4 | |
| Network support | | 3 | 0.15 | |
| Emotional support | 11 | 0.55 | ||
| Humor | | | 5 | 0.25 |
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.arthritis/browse_thread/thread/2a6118110cb78ffa/a3f3eec22bfcebdc?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#a3f3eec22bfcebdc
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.artists.springsteen/browse_thread/thread/1327a262e315bb7b/923041a6e2ec2e7e?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#923041a6e2ec2e7e
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.divorce/browse_thread/thread/e7b919f25d282d20/59e4f1b80eea4b41?hl=en&lnk=st&q=rod+knock+support#59e4f1b80eea4b41
Assignment 8
Dan Gordon (Blue Blog)
Dan's comments:
Comm 245 Blue: 8 "My whole life I have known I should have been born female."
Comm 245 Blue: 8 - "But what if I don't want kids?"
For this assignment we chose to do a single topic. We decided to look at support threads involving dieting advice. Because none of the threads we found had 20 responses we followed 3 threads until we had enough cases. The first thread was posted by an 18 year old man who was hoping to lose about 70 to 80 pounds. He listed details about his personal habits and his goals for weight loss. The second thread detailed a man coming off of a recent illness during which he was pretty inactive. In his post he asked for advice regarding low activity weight loss that would help him lose enough weight to start being active again. The third thread was an introduction by a woman who hadn't posted in quite some time and was looking for advice to give and receive regarding her efforts to lose weight. The posters on the three threads generally had good advice and encouraged each other to be positive.
Our results are as follows:
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.825 |
| ||
|
|
|
| frequency | %of msgs |
| Information |
| 17 | 0.85 | |
| Tangible assistance | 4 | 0.2 | ||
| Esteem support |
| 9 | 0.45 | |
| Network support |
| 2 | 0.1 | |
| Emotional support | 2 | 0.1 | ||
| Humor |
|
| 1 | 0.05 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Almost every post offered some sort of information whether it was general advice or specific weight loss tips. As this is an advice forum, there is not much of a point to post anything that doesn't yield some sort of beneficial information. Because of this the percentage of posts yielding information was far greater than in the Braithwaite study.
Posters tended to offer a lot more information than they did tangible assistance. Some posters offered to help others put together a diet plan specific to their needs. Our tangible assistance percentage was slightly lower than Braithwaithe's. We attribute this to the fact that with weight loss and dieting there is little tangible assistance that can be offered in a CmC setting.
Network support refers those seeking advice to professionals or organizations which specialize in the specific area they need help in. The thread which we coded had only a small amount of network support.
Emotional support helps in coping with certain difficult issues. Because the thread we examined was focused on weight loss, there was little along the lines of emotional support. People in this thread were seeking practical advice as opposed to emotional support. Because of this our percentage for emotional support was lower than Braithwaite's.
Esteem support involves the validation of other's opinion/position in order to boost their confidence. The threads we examined had a large proportion of esteem support. This is because success in weight loss and dieting is closely related to one's confidence and the effort they put towards sticking to their diet. People were willing to boost another person's self-esteem, but were reluctant to identify with another person emotionally. Dieters did not feel bad for other's being overweight, but rather sent the message that you can lose weight if you make an effort. Another possible explanation is a CFO perspective that it is more difficult to convey emotion and relate to others in a short period of time in a text-based communication. It also clear some posters knew each other from past googlegroup experiences, and these were the posters giving emotional support, which is consistent with SIP theory.
Because the thread was one that focused on weight loss and dieting, posters rarely used humor. We would think that this type of support forum is not the proper place to joke around and the coding percentages show this.
General information support and esteem support were the most frequent forms of support. It seems that CmC limits the effectiveness of tangible support, at least in regards tot he topic of weight loss and dieting. Esteem support was frequent because of the heavy demands weight loss and dieting can have on one's confidence and will power. We believe that the percentages for the different support categories vary depending on the topic being focused on. The fact that all those posting in the thread have a common goal or knowledge of weight loss makes them far less judgmental of each other. The threads we read through had members who identified with each other as a community. Because the thread was a support group it is unlikely that people would be reluctant to discuss their problems. The anonymity and social distance offered by the thread made it easier for posters to discuss their weight loss concerns. The absence of pictures and gating features made it easy to discuss the topic in an online forum. Instead of being judged based on appearance or weight, people were judged based on their effort to lose weight. This is an imporntant aspect of the anonymity and social distance offered via the thread.
Overall, we believe the subject matter is why our results differed slightly from Braithwaite's.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.diet/browse_frm/thread/b89cb051e6f351b4/928bd5528cdcdab8#928bd5528cdcdab8
assignment 8
Jadd Schmeltzer purple blog
Meghan Mitchell Yellow blog
For this assignment, Jadd and I decided to do three different topics, which had no relation to each other. We each got to pick our own topic then choose a neutral topic that we wanted to do. The topics we decided to do were gambling addiction, shopping addiction, and also Urgent Help. The last topic “Urgent Help,” was the first group that we decided to do because this girl’s mother was not allowing her to work because they would then receive less child support according to what her mother was saying. She listed what was going on in her life and the situation she was in and asked for help. The next topic that we did was gambling addiction. I thought of gambling addiction because this is a very serious topic that can ruin a person’s life. Seeking help for this topic is just a step in the process of becoming free of gambling problems. The last topic that we searched for was “shopping addiction.” I felt that this was an interesting topic as it is an issue for many women today. We encountered in this group that this women would spend $1,000 a MONTH on clothes. She was searching for some help on how other women had overcome similar issues. This was actually the most interesting post because it combined seriousness and humor together, but it also had a lot of good responses.
To evaluate the messages posted on the group’s page we used the conditioning scheme. The condition scheme consists of Information, Tangible assistance, Esteem Support, Network Support, Emotional, and Humor. Each group above uses different themes for evaluation.
Our Results:
% inter-rater reliability 0.925
Frequency % of messages
Information 19 0.95
Tangible assistance 6 0.3
Esteem support 8 0.4
Network support 6 0.3
Emotional support 13 0.65
Humor 7 0.35
Almost all our messages except one gave some sort of information whether it was advice, a referral, a situational approach, or teaching. The results we received coincided with what Braithwaite concluded about his results. Many people gave comforting information to the recipient to alleviate the pain and/or anguish they wished to rid themselves of. And in many cases, people gave referrals of places they could visit or call to receive some sort of help. Also, people would provide new and important information, e.g. legal processes, to help better the situation. Different ways of thinking and various solutions were offered so the person experiencing the dilemma was able to pick and use solutions given or think of ideas based off them.
Tangible assistance includes a loan, perform a direct or indirect task, have active participation, and express willingness. Tangible assistance wasn’t as popular and widely used as information was. One particular poster offered direct tangible assistance and expressed willingness to help the girl experiencing problems with her mother and father. The poster said if the girl ever needed a friend or anyone to talk to she would be there for her anytime. The frequency of our findings was a little higher than what Braithwaite received but they still were not as significant as the other categories of advice.
Network support provides people with companion figures who have the knowledge to help and/or have experienced a similar situation. It also includes access and presence. Esteem support is validating people’s positions and relieving them from blame allows for increased confidence levels. Doing this raises the receiver’s confidence level and gives them hope that their problem will be solved.
Emotional support is the second most used way of offering advice. It offers relationship support, affection, confidentiality, sympathy, understanding, and affection. Braithwaite concluded that emotional support was the most widely used from of giving advice. Offering support through the means of “love and friendship” and showing concern and understanding shows the person they are not alone and they people available to help them. Also, feeling like you are trustworthy and show empathy towards the person and their problem allows them to feel comfortable opening open and welcoming advice from and help from others.
Surprisingly we found quite a few postings exhibiting humor. We say surprising because one wouldn’t normally think of finding humor incorporated with advice concerning serious topics. After reading what Braithwaite has to say about humor and why it’s used more than one would think makes sense. Using humor deflects negativity and tension and the anonymity factor of the CMC setting, according to Braithwaite, allows people to feel more comfortable using and receiving humor online as it’s deemed less risky.
The most important methods of offering advice to others in need were through the use of information, esteem support, and emotional support. Our findings corroborate the Braithwaite findings except for the fact that network and tangible assistance were more frequently used in our findings when compared to the Braithwaite findings.
The SIDE theory can be used to explain why people feel comfortable asking for advice and wishing to disclose personal information online for everyone to see. People can offer help and can relate to certain situations because they share a common ground. According to SIDE, CMC will have more social influence when people are visually anonymous and can identify with a social category. This is exactly what we witnessed when looking through our postings. People identified based on common ground principles and thus felt comfortable giving and receiving advice. Humor, which was used quite frequently, is also affected by this concept. With all this, people are more likely to give and receive help because common ground and anonymity provides “direct support” without hesitation.
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.legal/browse_thread/thread/bc8bd256964353e9/8b050a9350ded77e?lnk=st&q=advice#8b050a9350ded77e
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.gambling.blackjack/browse_thread/thread/93ef75832dcd664f/06b32f8147c8e0a3?lnk=st&q=advice+on+gambling+addiction#06b32f8147c8e0a3
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fashion/browse_thread/thread/c3846644f9c8503d/65e2c0013806f02d?lnk=st&q=shopping+addiction#65e2c0013806f02d
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.diet.low-carb/browse_thread/thread/5f5273e4e03e008/8ba33b0a2175802d?lnk=st&q=eating+disorder+help#8ba33b0a2175802d
Meghan Mitchell Yellow blog
For this assignment, Jadd and I decided to do three different topics, which had no relation to each other. We each got to pick our own topic then choose a neutral topic that we wanted to do. The topics we decided to do were gambling addiction, shopping addiction, and also Urgent Help. The last topic “Urgent Help,” was the first group that we decided to do because this girl’s mother was not allowing her to work because they would then receive less child support according to what her mother was saying. She listed what was going on in her life and the situation she was in and asked for help. The next topic that we did was gambling addiction. I thought of gambling addiction because this is a very serious topic that can ruin a person’s life. Seeking help for this topic is just a step in the process of becoming free of gambling problems. The last topic that we searched for was “shopping addiction.” I felt that this was an interesting topic as it is an issue for many women today. We encountered in this group that this women would spend $1,000 a MONTH on clothes. She was searching for some help on how other women had overcome similar issues. This was actually the most interesting post because it combined seriousness and humor together, but it also had a lot of good responses.
To evaluate the messages posted on the group’s page we used the conditioning scheme. The condition scheme consists of Information, Tangible assistance, Esteem Support, Network Support, Emotional, and Humor. Each group above uses different themes for evaluation.
Our Results:
% inter-rater reliability 0.925
Frequency % of messages
Information 19 0.95
Tangible assistance 6 0.3
Esteem support 8 0.4
Network support 6 0.3
Emotional support 13 0.65
Humor 7 0.35
Almost all our messages except one gave some sort of information whether it was advice, a referral, a situational approach, or teaching. The results we received coincided with what Braithwaite concluded about his results. Many people gave comforting information to the recipient to alleviate the pain and/or anguish they wished to rid themselves of. And in many cases, people gave referrals of places they could visit or call to receive some sort of help. Also, people would provide new and important information, e.g. legal processes, to help better the situation. Different ways of thinking and various solutions were offered so the person experiencing the dilemma was able to pick and use solutions given or think of ideas based off them.
Tangible assistance includes a loan, perform a direct or indirect task, have active participation, and express willingness. Tangible assistance wasn’t as popular and widely used as information was. One particular poster offered direct tangible assistance and expressed willingness to help the girl experiencing problems with her mother and father. The poster said if the girl ever needed a friend or anyone to talk to she would be there for her anytime. The frequency of our findings was a little higher than what Braithwaite received but they still were not as significant as the other categories of advice.
Network support provides people with companion figures who have the knowledge to help and/or have experienced a similar situation. It also includes access and presence. Esteem support is validating people’s positions and relieving them from blame allows for increased confidence levels. Doing this raises the receiver’s confidence level and gives them hope that their problem will be solved.
Emotional support is the second most used way of offering advice. It offers relationship support, affection, confidentiality, sympathy, understanding, and affection. Braithwaite concluded that emotional support was the most widely used from of giving advice. Offering support through the means of “love and friendship” and showing concern and understanding shows the person they are not alone and they people available to help them. Also, feeling like you are trustworthy and show empathy towards the person and their problem allows them to feel comfortable opening open and welcoming advice from and help from others.
Surprisingly we found quite a few postings exhibiting humor. We say surprising because one wouldn’t normally think of finding humor incorporated with advice concerning serious topics. After reading what Braithwaite has to say about humor and why it’s used more than one would think makes sense. Using humor deflects negativity and tension and the anonymity factor of the CMC setting, according to Braithwaite, allows people to feel more comfortable using and receiving humor online as it’s deemed less risky.
The most important methods of offering advice to others in need were through the use of information, esteem support, and emotional support. Our findings corroborate the Braithwaite findings except for the fact that network and tangible assistance were more frequently used in our findings when compared to the Braithwaite findings.
The SIDE theory can be used to explain why people feel comfortable asking for advice and wishing to disclose personal information online for everyone to see. People can offer help and can relate to certain situations because they share a common ground. According to SIDE, CMC will have more social influence when people are visually anonymous and can identify with a social category. This is exactly what we witnessed when looking through our postings. People identified based on common ground principles and thus felt comfortable giving and receiving advice. Humor, which was used quite frequently, is also affected by this concept. With all this, people are more likely to give and receive help because common ground and anonymity provides “direct support” without hesitation.
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.legal/browse_thread/thread/bc8bd256964353e9/8b050a9350ded77e?lnk=st&q=advice#8b050a9350ded77e
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.gambling.blackjack/browse_thread/thread/93ef75832dcd664f/06b32f8147c8e0a3?lnk=st&q=advice+on+gambling+addiction#06b32f8147c8e0a3
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fashion/browse_thread/thread/c3846644f9c8503d/65e2c0013806f02d?lnk=st&q=shopping+addiction#65e2c0013806f02d
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.diet.low-carb/browse_thread/thread/5f5273e4e03e008/8ba33b0a2175802d?lnk=st&q=eating+disorder+help#8ba33b0a2175802d
Monday, October 29, 2007
Assignment 8
Braithwaite's article titled "Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Groups for People With Disabilities," provides the reader with a system for analyzing group messages. There are several categories in which support group messages can be broken up into: Information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support. According to the article, Braithwaite discovered that 31% of messages include information, 13% include tangible assistance, 19% include esteem support, 7% include network support, and 40% include emotional support. One last category, humor, was added for this particular assignment and has been viewed as another category for analyzing support groups.
In our own experiment, we coded our own responses to several support groups found on Google. The support groups ranged from dealing with illnesses, to emotional problems, and we as a group had a relatively high inter-rater reliability (71%). Our statistics in this assignment are shown in the table below:
Overall, we agreed almost every time on support categories such as ‘information,’ as well as ‘support.’ Tangible assistance and network support were the items in which we disagreed on the most. Overall, the information that we gathered, and the high inter-rater reliability percentage describes how the three members in our group view support information similarly. This information differs from what Braithwaite discovered. We had much higher correlation percentages in the ‘information’ category as the groups we viewed, were informative (giving information as to what a disease/condition is, how to deal with it etc…). Moreover, our information disagrees with Braithwaite’s in two another major categories, emotional support and network support. Our numbers double her findings and are eight times greater, respectively. It is apparent from these findings, that our simulation was significantly different that Braithwaite’s.
Our group found that Walther’s (1993) Social Information Processing theory was not at work in many of the support groups which we looked at. Complete strangers delve right into their problems and questions while other users are quick to respond with equally personally anecdotes and advice. There were know chilly impressions at first and it did not take time for a transition of information between users, as Walther’s theory claims. Additionally, Wallace claims that the more people present, the less likely someone will reach out and give support. This claim is also contradicted based on our findings. When our group went into these support groups we were shocked to see how many responses people got to seemingly obscure questions and personal predicaments. Finally, our findings are supported by the SIDE theory (Spears and Lea, 1990). As the theory states, people completely relate to and feel comfortable discussing issues with other people within the same online social group, in this case a support group.
Other group members: Rachel Ullman (rsu5) and Scott Gorski (sag53)
A few Threads: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.anxiety-panic.moderated/browse_thread/thread/ffbe578f5be7b624/ab09be56cefbbc66?lnk=st&q=anxiety#ab09be56cefbbc66
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.ocd/browse_thread/thread/0c0240b68fd44247/51b1bb44555af352#51b1bb44555af352
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.ocd/browse_thread/thread/83cee1abafbe6064/dd9e420721daab91?lnk=st&q=ocd+support#dd9e420721daab91
Comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-8_29.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-8our.html
Assignment 8
Coders: Emily Cohn and Caryn Ganeles (yellow)
In our study of inter-coder reliability, we read through 20 posts on an online support group on marriage support. We then individually determined whether or not each of the 5 support types in addition to the unique support behavior, humor, were present in the message and compared our results, calculating inter-coder reliability. Following the model presented in Braithwaite’s article, “Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Communication for People with Disabilities,” we analyzed messages and concluded that our inter-rater reliability was 73.3%.
When going about this experiment, we came across several messages that had to be discarded. For the most part, about half of the messages had to be discarded due to the fact that many posts on the support group were simply individuals proclaiming their problems and therefore failed to provide any sort of support.
Here were our results:
% inter-rater reliability 0.733333333
frequency % of msgs
Information 16 0.8
Tangible assistance 2 0.1
Esteem support 4 0.2
Network support 8 0.4
Emotional support 6 0.3
Humor 5 0.25
As you can see from our results chart, our content analysis differs in many ways from Braithwaite's results. In the article "Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Groups for People With Disabilities", Braithwaite found that the order of prevalence of different support types was emotional support, information, esteem support, network support, and tangible assistance, respectively. However, our results show that our order of prevalence is information, network support, emotional support, esteem support, and tangible support. Humor was also added to our analysis, and this was found in 25% of the posts.
We found that information was prevalent in 80% of the posts. This is very different from Braithwaite’s 31.7% figure. This difference may be accounted for by the type of support network we were analyzing. In Braithwaite, the research team analyzed messages from a support network for people with disabilities. On page 24 of the article Braithwaite
writes, “…we studied only one computer support group, targeted toward persons with disabilities. One obvious direction for future research is to examine communication in other groups to determine whether the patterns we found are generalizable.” Due to our results, we conclude that the pattern is not generalizable. Because we analyzed a marriage support group,
members’ posts were more directed towards asking for advice than seeking social connections. Our support network members did not have barriers to FtF communication and may not have been looking for the same type of online relationship as those in the disability network.
We believe the difference in support networks is accountable for our differences in data from Braithwaite. Our second most prevalent support type, network esteem at 40%, does not match Braithwaite’s 7.1%. The posters in our support group liked to refer others to books or articles to help answer their questions. Emotional support was offered 30% of the time, which is slightly different from Braithwaite’s 40%. The subjects in the marriage network did not need as much emotional support as those with life-altering physical disability problems. Esteem support occurred 20% of the time in our results and 18.6% is Braithwaite’s. Lastly, both our group and Braithwaite ranked tangible assistance last, 2.7% in Braithwaite’s data and 10% in ours. It is difficult to offer physical assistance overthe CMC support network.
We can relate our findings to McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors. First, the factor of connecting to similar others was quite evident in the support group. Many people in the support group were there for the same reason; problematic marriages caused the message providers to all congregate in the group due to the principle of common group. Such a connection contributed to much of the emotional support and network support that was present in such messages.
Additionally, it is evident that identifiability played a role in the exchange of messages. This factor suggests that disinhibited behavior emerges online due to increased private self-awareness and decreased public self-awareness, both of which are caused by visual anonymity. It is evident that the members of this support group were disinhibited by their anonymity and therefore more inclined to reveal information that they would otherwise consider private information. If this support group were to exist in FtF interaction, such individuals would be discouraged from revealing such information, keeping in mind that what they say could reflect on themselves more personally.
Lastly, the removal of gating features also contributed to the messages relayed in the support group. Due to the fact that physical attractiveness, status cues, and social anxieties were not apparent on the site, contributors were not hesitant to express themselves in the online forum.
Emily's comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-8_9699.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/8-sage-parenting-advice-from-usenet.html
In our study of inter-coder reliability, we read through 20 posts on an online support group on marriage support. We then individually determined whether or not each of the 5 support types in addition to the unique support behavior, humor, were present in the message and compared our results, calculating inter-coder reliability. Following the model presented in Braithwaite’s article, “Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Communication for People with Disabilities,” we analyzed messages and concluded that our inter-rater reliability was 73.3%.
When going about this experiment, we came across several messages that had to be discarded. For the most part, about half of the messages had to be discarded due to the fact that many posts on the support group were simply individuals proclaiming their problems and therefore failed to provide any sort of support.
Here were our results:
% inter-rater reliability 0.733333333
frequency % of msgs
Information 16 0.8
Tangible assistance 2 0.1
Esteem support 4 0.2
Network support 8 0.4
Emotional support 6 0.3
Humor 5 0.25
As you can see from our results chart, our content analysis differs in many ways from Braithwaite's results. In the article "Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Groups for People With Disabilities", Braithwaite found that the order of prevalence of different support types was emotional support, information, esteem support, network support, and tangible assistance, respectively. However, our results show that our order of prevalence is information, network support, emotional support, esteem support, and tangible support. Humor was also added to our analysis, and this was found in 25% of the posts.
We found that information was prevalent in 80% of the posts. This is very different from Braithwaite’s 31.7% figure. This difference may be accounted for by the type of support network we were analyzing. In Braithwaite, the research team analyzed messages from a support network for people with disabilities. On page 24 of the article Braithwaite
writes, “…we studied only one computer support group, targeted toward persons with disabilities. One obvious direction for future research is to examine communication in other groups to determine whether the patterns we found are generalizable.” Due to our results, we conclude that the pattern is not generalizable. Because we analyzed a marriage support group,
members’ posts were more directed towards asking for advice than seeking social connections. Our support network members did not have barriers to FtF communication and may not have been looking for the same type of online relationship as those in the disability network.
We believe the difference in support networks is accountable for our differences in data from Braithwaite. Our second most prevalent support type, network esteem at 40%, does not match Braithwaite’s 7.1%. The posters in our support group liked to refer others to books or articles to help answer their questions. Emotional support was offered 30% of the time, which is slightly different from Braithwaite’s 40%. The subjects in the marriage network did not need as much emotional support as those with life-altering physical disability problems. Esteem support occurred 20% of the time in our results and 18.6% is Braithwaite’s. Lastly, both our group and Braithwaite ranked tangible assistance last, 2.7% in Braithwaite’s data and 10% in ours. It is difficult to offer physical assistance overthe CMC support network.
We can relate our findings to McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors. First, the factor of connecting to similar others was quite evident in the support group. Many people in the support group were there for the same reason; problematic marriages caused the message providers to all congregate in the group due to the principle of common group. Such a connection contributed to much of the emotional support and network support that was present in such messages.
Additionally, it is evident that identifiability played a role in the exchange of messages. This factor suggests that disinhibited behavior emerges online due to increased private self-awareness and decreased public self-awareness, both of which are caused by visual anonymity. It is evident that the members of this support group were disinhibited by their anonymity and therefore more inclined to reveal information that they would otherwise consider private information. If this support group were to exist in FtF interaction, such individuals would be discouraged from revealing such information, keeping in mind that what they say could reflect on themselves more personally.
Lastly, the removal of gating features also contributed to the messages relayed in the support group. Due to the fact that physical attractiveness, status cues, and social anxieties were not apparent on the site, contributors were not hesitant to express themselves in the online forum.
Emily's comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-8_9699.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/8-sage-parenting-advice-from-usenet.html
Assignment #8, Our
Jason Cohen(Yellow Blog), Jeffrey Hertzberg(Red Blog)Like many of our peers, we decided that Google Groups would be the optimal place to start looking for social support groups. We found one pertaining to grief (more specifically grief over the death of loved ones) and coded it in terms of the six categories of online social support, most of which were presented by Braithwaite and one of which was not:
Information refers, rather obviously, to factual assistance or advice given as a means be of support.
Tangible Assistance refers to actual, physical help, along the lines of loaning somebody money, in contrast to the other, primarily verbal types of support.
Esteem Support is the affirmation of others through compliments.
Emotional Support is the means of supporting others via empathy, sympathy, or general affection.
Network Support is the referral of the person in need to support to others in a better position to help, be they professionals or just people with more experience.
Humor speaks for itself; laughter is the best medicine, after all.
Our interrate reliability was .2583 - we disagreed 7 times, usually over differences in opinion over semantics - a rather low rating, but none of our disagreements were very strong and we were able to reach a consensus easily.
We found a much higher instance of emotional support than any other, but it is likely that the nature of the group, which seemed not intent on having its members find ways overcome their grief, but rather on allowing them to sympathize with one another, this is not surprising. Almost every post we analyzed contained emotional support in some capacity, typically empathetic in nature, relating the experiences of the person in need of support to the person providing it.
Information (usually from personal experience) was another common factor, as was network support (typically in the form of an endorsement of that particular community and its general openness). Tangible support was rare (and the one instance we did find was debatable). Esteem support was also rare.
Interesting to note is the complete lack of humor in every post we analyzed. Although the community we surveyed dealt with grief, we still would have expected to find some lighthearted quips or jokes - it seems this particular group (or perhaps just the posts we read) was more solemn than we anticipated. I think it's also important to note that the attitude of some of the posters - as mentioned before, more focused on living with their grief than moving past it - doesn't sound all that healthy. This begs the question: can well-intentioned support still sometimes be harmful?
Threads:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.grief/browse_thread/thread/7b64cc8effe48ec2/d3495c2ef8d822f4#d3495c2ef8d822f4
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.grief/browse_thread/thread/65f5c0e8e5ca7439/d9040fcec8ea9053#d9040fcec8ea9053
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.grief/browse_thread/thread/9a538c2985bc13f8/b177ce017f6127c2#b177ce017f6127c2
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.grief/browse_thread/thread/062c6da6dc7969c9/b644b0b705e02e30#b644b0b705e02e30
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.grief/browse_thread/thread/3f397aa2aa56c546/ffd91e4be520ee21#ffd91e4be520ee21
Assignment 8
Group: Caslynn Carambelas (Yellow) and Vaishal Patel (Purple)
Braithwaite's article titled "Communication of Social Support in Computer-Mediated Groups for People With Disabilities" provides an overview of Cutrona and Suhr's social support category system for analyzing support group messages, and her own study's results. She describes the different elements of a message to be categorized as information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support. For our assignment we rated on one extra category, humor.
We picked a group for people living with, and fighting against any type of cancer. The specific thread we analyzed was titled "Roll Call for October" where people who frequent the board give updates and support about their treatment, feelings, and lives. It can be found here. Our results after coding are presented in the following table.
We coded the first twenty messages or so (we skipped a few that had little more than a word or two). We found that we had a high inter-rater reliability score of over 94%. The areas we sometimes disagreed on were in emotional support as Braithwaite predicted, saying "coders found the definition of this category to be too broad."
Braithwaite found 31% of messages to include information, 13% to include tangible assistance, 19 to include esteem support, 7% to include network support, and 40% to include emotional support. Our results were generally consistent in the categories of tangible assistance and network support, our coding yielded 25% and 5%, respectively.
One area where our findings were drastically different than presented in the study was in information. We found information twice as frequently as in the Braithwaite paper. We believe the nature of the individual thread was the reason for finding information so frequently. Many posts first gave information in the form of updates, treatments, and medical test numbers, and then replied to previous posts. This was also probably aided by the Social Identity Deindividuation Theory; the idea that when social identity is salient and members are anonymous there is greater social identification, conformity, influence, attraction, and polarization. Since the first poster structured her post with information first, followed by words of encouragement, many other members who identified with the anonymous poster structured their posts similarly.
Another aspect of our findings that differed with the study was in esteem support. Again our findings were more than twice as frequent. Compliments about others' drive, attitude, and perseverance were common, as were posts that validated the others' concerns and beliefs. Such compliments and validation we found could be attributed to Walther's Hyperpersonal Theory. Users selectively self presented information and could have appeared more positive, or reported numbers that made them feel better, yielding validation and compliments. The repliers could have used the over-attribution process, to take what the poster said and generalize it to all aspects of their lives.
The last metric that differed with the study was in emotional support. Like the previous results, it was again more than twice as frequent, a whopping 86%. Nearly all messages had a form of emotional support, usually sympathy, understanding, empathy, encouragement, and prayer. SIDE theory was probably the motivating factor in this. There seemed to be a great group salience, the members had a lot in common, and even spoke of hobbies they had in common (visiting lighthouses). They could have felt a lot in common also from the over-attribution process, and selective self presentation, making their posts very encouraging, heartfelt, and sympathetic.
In general the board seemed like a place to come for both esteem and emotional support. Most users seemed to have aggressive forms of cancer and felt comfortable talking about their situation in this anonymous, high group salient, environment. In fact, we also rated the posts on humor content, many were tongue-in-cheek about their treatments and side-effects, bringing a lightness to a serious matter, making everyone feel more like a part of a group and more comfortable.
Polyamory!
Heena Kamdar- member of yellow blog
Sophia Ng- member of purple blog
Christina Reda- member of brown blog
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
Sunday, October 28, 2007
A8: No, I will not provided tangible assistance and hold open your eyelids for you.
Susannie Watt- Member of Brown Blog Thomas Liu – Member of Yellow Blog
Our subject of study was something near and dear to our heart as college students: sleep. There are many sleep disorders, and many more that are afflicted with it, which in turn means that there are many support groups for said disorders. In our study, we analyzed twenty different posts related to sleep disorders, especially narcolepsy, from Usenet. Our inter-rater reliability was a solid ~93%, a good indicator of dependable coding. Due to the nature of the disorders, many posts enlightened the OP (original poster) about the little-known illness and did not often offer as much emotional support compared to support groups for depression and cancer. A sizable amount of posts, 95%, were coded as information support as posters tried to help others cope with the difficulty of diagnosing and treating sleep disorders like narcolepsy, in constrast to Braithwaite's most frequent code category, emotional support. Network support, at 25%, tied with humor in third most common type of post, was another means for people to meet other more knowledgeable narcoleptics, since the sources of knowledge are more likely to be fellow narcoleptics rather than from the medical community, being that there are not large amounts of scientific resources availbale on sleeping disorders.
Emotional support came as the second most frequent, at 30%, being that the population of narcoleptics is so small and every bit of encouragement helps. Also, the fact that those afflicted as so far and few, Wallace’s number theory suggests that those who see the plea for help are more inclined to reply, since they bear the responsibility more strongly. After recalling their own difficulties with the disorders, they want to share their wealth of experience as well as their sympathy. There was also a desire to raise others’ spirits through humor, since the disorders are less grave than say, cancer, and the light hearted tone would encourage others to do something about their problem. The esteem support was not as high as reported by Braithwaite, because the community was more focused on getting the information out and less on validating the afflicted or clearing them from blame. However, sometimes, the sleep-deprived are considered lazy or late-night party- participants, and some posters quickly dispelled that notion. Our results for tangible assistance remained low as well, just as in Braithwaite's analysis.
Interestingly enough, anonymity was not a strong factor in narcoleptics or others suffering from sleep disorders to seek support groups. Many of the posters in alt.narcoleptics signed their posts with their name or provided their own website about the disorders. Although Walter states that anonymity would encourage those seeking and those providing help to be more inclined, in this case, the effect was not as strong. An interesting manifestation of interaction management, in the case of sleep disorders, is that those afflicted tend to fall asleep during daily activities, hence making forums and support groups difficulty to attend FtF. Online, people can give input and address concerns whenever they can (aka, when they’re awake), due to the nature of 24/7 access and the asynchronicity of Usenet. This lends evidence to Walter’s theory that online support groups can be as successful, if not more, than FtF support.
Reference Links:| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.sleep-disorder/browse_thread/thread/5e54324f97baf4ea/25dde7fd331d60ae?lnk=st&q=college+stress#25dde7fd331d60ae |
| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.sleep-disorder/browse_thread/thread/b7675ced71117ed5/1f6229503dcf9bb5?lnk=st&q=sleeping+disorder#1f6229503dcf9bb5 |
| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.narcolepsy/browse_thread/thread/523daee7b7cd1c89/2cdeb9c8df9f0936?lnk=st&q=narcolepsy#2cdeb9c8df9f0936 |
| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.narcolepsy/browse_thread/thread/93738f5a0a977668/c0bfaf097824974f?lnk=st&q=narcolepsy#c0bfaf097824974f |
| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.sleep-disorder/browse_thread/thread/25250ae68973b3c4/cad475e77ddec207?lnk=st&q=narcolepsy#cad475e77ddec207 |
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