Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Dec 10, 2019
Date Accepted: Apr 27, 2020
Social Capital, Social Support, and Language Use in an Online Depression Forum: Social Network Analysis and Computerized Text Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
The use of peer-to-peer online support groups and communities has grown into a social phenomenon. Many people use online support groups and communities to seek, provide, and exchange social support. It is essential to examine how users’ participation behaviors may contribute to different outcomes.
Objective:
The objectives of this study include: (a) using online depression forum users’ structural positions in their reply network to predict the received support, and (b) examining their change in language use reflecting their health conditions.
Methods:
This study used web-scraped data collected from a large online depression forum. A total of 2,061 users and their 62,274 replies were analyzed. Social network analysis method was used to build the users’ reply networks. Computerized text analysis method was used to measure features of forum users’ language use styles.
Results:
Forum users’ bridging social capital (operationalized as network betweenness) was positively associated with the level of communication accommodation in their received replies. Forum users’ bonding social capital (operationalized as network constraint) was negatively associated with the level of communication accommodation in their received replies. Forum users’ change in their use of self-referent words and negative emotion words were examined as linguistic proxies for their health conditions and mental states. The results revealed a general positive association between receiving replies and the decrease in their use of negative emotion words.
Conclusions:
Online depression forum users’ structural positions in the reply network can bring users’ different participation outcomes. Receiving replies can be beneficial to online depression forum users.
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