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Join, Stay or Go?: A Closer Look at Members' Life Cycles in Online Health Communities

Authors:

John M. Levine,

Carissa A. Low,

Tenbroeck Smith,

Robert E. KrautAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CSCW1

Article No.: 171, Pages 1 - 22

https://doi.org/10.1145/3449245

Published: 22 April 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Online health communities (OHCs) have become important resources from which members can obtain social support. Since most benefits of OHCs are provided by its members, it is crucial that OHCs maintain a critical mass of active members. This paper examines temporal changes in members' participation in a cancer-orientedOHC, focusing on the changes in members' motivations and behavior as they transition from newcomers to other roles or when they ultimately leave the community. Our work used mixed methods, combining behavioral log analysis, automated content analysis, surveys and interviews. We found that shifts in members' motivations seemed to be driven by two sources: the internal dynamics common to becoming a member of most online communities and the external needs associated with their cancer journey. When members' disease-driven needs for support decreased, most members quit the site. The motivations of those who stayed shifted from receiving support to providing it to others in the community. As in many online communities, old-timers contributed the vast majority of content. However, they encountered challenges that threatened their commitment, including negative emotions related to other members' deaths, which led them to take leaves of absence from the community or to drop out permanently. Implications for the motivation changes ofOHC members are discussed.

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Index Terms

Join, Stay or Go?: A Closer Look at Members' Life Cycles in Online Health Communities
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 5, Issue CSCW1

CSCW

April 2021

5016 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3460939

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

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Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 April 2021

Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW1

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Su ZKamath STirakitsoontorn PChen Y(2024)The Hidden Burden: Encountering and Managing (Unintended) Stigma in Children with Serious IllnessesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36410218:CSCW1(1-35)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641021
Hohman FKery MRen DMoritz D(2024)Model Compression in Practice: Lessons Learned from Practitioners Creating On-device Machine Learning ExperiencesProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642109(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642109
Bhattacharya ALee KRavi VStaddon JBellini R(2024)Shortchanged: Uncovering and Analyzing Intimate Partner Financial Abuse in Consumer ComplaintsProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642033(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642033
Pang BLiu SWang HGuo BWang YWang HSheng ZWang ZYu Z(2023)AdaMEC: Towards a Context-adaptive and Dynamically Combinable DNN Deployment Framework for Mobile Edge ComputingACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/363009820:1(1-28)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2023
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Dong ZHe QChen FJin HGu TYang Y(2023)EdgeMove: Pipelining Device-Edge Model Training for Mobile IntelligenceProceedings of the ACM Web Conference 202310.1145/3543507.3583540(3142-3153)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2023
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Xing WDu H(2022)Mining Large Open Online Learning Networks: Exploring Community Dynamics and Communities of PerformanceJournal of Educational Computing Research10.1177/0735633122111361361:2(390-415)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331221113613
Rothschild NAharony N(2022)Motivations for sharing personal information and self-disclosure in public and private Facebook groups of mentally ill peopleAslib Journal of Information Management10.1108/AJIM-02-2022-006375:6(1079-1103)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-02-2022-0063

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