Open AccessTHE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION AFFORDANCES IN POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SUPPORT GROUPS ON FACEBOOK AND WHATSAPP
Author(s) -
Daphna Yeshua-Katz
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12080
Subject(s) - affordance , psychology , mental health , coping (psychology) , perception , applied psychology , clinical psychology , psychotherapist , cognitive psychology , neuroscience
Digital health research has highlighted the fact that people withstigmatized health problems are drawn to online support groups (OSG) because these groupshelp them to manage their stigmatized health conditions. However, little is known about howmedia affordances— the interaction between the technology and the user—reconfigure the waysin which stigmatized individuals use OSG and interact with others like themselves. Thecurrent study applied an affordance framework to evaluate how Facebook and WhatsApp supportgroups can help military veterans and their partners cope with posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD) and was based on interviews with 34 PTSD OSG members in Israel. This researchidentified five affordances that members appraised to enhance their coping efforts in thedigital world: visibility, availability, multimediality, surveillance, and synchronicity.This study reveals the connection between a specific stigmatizing mental health disorder(i.e., PTSD), perceptions of communication technologies (i.e., affordances), and specifiesuses of technologies for coping with this mental health disorder. Moreover, this study mayinform digital intervention designers about which communication affordances can potentiallylead to better health outcomes.