Online social support is reported to be used by a number of people to obtain social interaction and exchange communication as a way to buffer stressful situations. Breastfeeding women experience a significant change in their lives and routine which a number of women find it stressful for various reasons. Research shows that breastfeeding women use the Internet to obtain support, however little is known about how breastfeeding women use online social support and their perceptions, concerns and expectations about using it. An interpretive approach using qualitative methods was adopted in this research to obtain and analyse the data acquired through interviews and observations. The framework proposed by the Social Cognitive theory was used to conduct this research and to provide insights into online social support in a breastfeeding peer support context. The results in this research indicate that in spite of face-to-face interventions being favoured, online social support is perceived as a helpful alternative support with the potential to positively influence breastfeeding self-efficacy. A number of similar characteristics of face-to-face support were found to be present in online social support, such as emotional and informational support, empathy and empowerment. Online social support was perceived as offering additional features to traditional support including convenience of use, connection with peers and supporters at any time of the day, and the opportunity to express emotions and issues textually. Certain concerns were also associated to using online social support to support breastfeeding women, which need to be taken into consideration by providers of online social support. These included the need for training volunteers in this type of media, confidentiality and trustworthiness of the information available online and issues related to digital divide. These findings are useful to further the understanding of the implications of online social support in self-efficacy and the associated outcomes. Policy makers, social scientists and breastfeeding support organisations can use the findings in this research to develop future breastfeeding promotion strategies and interventions. Ultimately, breastfeeding women benefit from the findings of this research, through the implementation of online social support interventions addressing the issues raised in this research. These women will consequently have access to more services and applications, as well as engage with volunteers or clinicians trained to fulfil their needs over an alternative channel.

This exploratory study investigated the differences between traditional 12 step meetings and online 12 step videoconferencing meetings in a recovery-based social networking site (SNS). Drawing from a social support framework and the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), I conducted an online survey (N = 97) measuring perceptions of effectiveness, small group and relational satisfaction, identification, social support and network quality, anonymity, and access for both traditional and online videoconferencing meetings. In addition, an index was created to assess online community members’ level of engagement within the SNS. Findings reveal that (a) traditional 12 step meetings rank significantly higher on perceptions of social support quality and recovery network quality, as well as overall meeting effectiveness, and small group and relational satisfaction, (b) members’ perceptions of small group and relational satisfaction, social support and network quality are significant predictors of identification within a 12 step group, and lastly (c) members’ level of engagement within the SNS is strongly correlated with a number of positive outcomes suggesting that the more engaged a member is with various features within the SNS, the more social support and recovery benefits a member perceives. In sum, this study advances practical understanding of the role SNS and online videoconferencing meetings have in shaping the experiences of members in recovery. The usefulness of this study for online social support researchers as well as suggestions for future research are discussed. / text

This study explores how people with medical concerns seek and perceive social support via Weibo—a social network site in China. The study conducts both a content analysis and an in-depth interview for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of social support on Weibo. Altogether 2548 postings and replies from four Weibo support groups—the Breast Cancer Group, the Arthritis Group, Baby Eczema Group and Children’s Health Group—were categorized into 9 types with a deductive thematic analysis; twenty participants from these four Weibo groups were recruited in the in-depth interview to explore how people seek and perceive social support from Weibo. Weibo stands out as a platform for people to exchange social support for its convenience, multiple functions, and strong ability to connect each other. Though there are some disadvantages of Weibo social support identified by Weibo users, they can, to some extent, be avoided and reduced under appropriate administration.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo buscou contribuições da psicologia do desenvolvimento, pela perspectiva da psicologia evolucionista e sociocultural, para compreender a construção da maternidade contemporânea com uso do Facebook como suporte online. No último século ocorreram muitas transformações no papel social da mulher, o mercado de trabalho a incorporou, o nível de escolaridade aumentou, a taxa de natalidade caiu. Entretanto, a diminuição no número de filhos não reduziu o trabalho materno. Em contextos urbanos de grandes cidades, as famílias estendidas são menos frequentes. Em contraste, o uso de redes sociais, tipo Facebook, aumenta. O percentual de brasileiras (30-39 anos) que utiliza a internet supera 50%. Hipotetizou-se que redes sociais online podem complementar o apoio demandado pelas mães. Desse modo, entendendo que mulheres precisam de apoio para cuidar das crianças e que o mundo atual está interconectado através da internet, buscou-se abordar a maternidade contemporânea em sociedade urbana e a internet no contexto do suporte online à parentalidade. Foram feitos dois estudos com amostra de um grupo de suporte online para gestantes/mães no Facebook: 1) Análise de postagens coletadas (30 meses), objetivando compreender discurso materno e principais temas abordados; 2) Investigação da percepção sobre rede de apoio geral e online, como o apoio online pode ser conseguido, o que interessa às mães neste tipo de apoio e perfil sociodemográfico. O Estudo 1, analisou conteúdo de 2.510 postagens apontando dois grupos de categorias: psicológicas (45%) e não-psicológicas (55%). No primeiro, o discurso enquadra-se na teoria da constelação da maternidade de Daniel Stern: 1) vida crescimento (50%); 2) relacionar-se primário (8%); 3) matriz de apoio (40%); 4) reorganização da identidade (2%). O segundo indicou quatro categorias: 5) negócios/divulgação (54%); 6) desenvolvimento gestacional/parto (9%); 7) pós-parto (5%); 8) indicações/pedidos práticos (32%). O Estudo 2 apontou que as participantes têm idade média de 31,86 anos, 88,6% possui graduação completa, a maioria mora com companheiro, exerce atividade profissional remunerada e tem renda familiar mensal superior a 10 salários mínimos (48%). Os principais interesses estão nos temas relacionados à saúde e cuidados com bebê. A maioria indica que lê as postagens com mais frequência do que expõem suas dúvidas. Grande parte percebe o grupo online como uma ajuda importante no exercício da sua maternidade. A escala de apoio social (presencial) apresenta escores maiores do que a escala de apoio social online com diferença em todas as dimensões. A escala de apoio social online aponta que as dimensões apoio informacional e emocional apresentam escores maiores, revelando que a troca de informações e o encorajamento em momentos difíceis da vida parecem ser os mais relevantes, apontando, principalmente, que há diferença significativa entre a dimensão emocional e as demais dimensões da escala. Resumindo, o grupo de suporte online se mostrou uma importante ferramenta para compartilhar informações entre mulheres que estão passando pelo mesmo momento do ciclo vital, e o suporte online um instrumento relevante ao suporte à parentalidade, prestando-se a um serviço que não poderia ser imaginado décadas atrás. Novos estudos poderão aprofundar e ampliar os resultados desta investigação / In order to understand the construction of contemporary motherhood with the use of Facebook as an online support, this study has been based on contributions from developmental psychology, under the perspective of both evolutionary and sociocultural psychology. Plenty of changes have happened on womens social role in the last century: Women were incorporated into the labor market, their years of formal education increased and birth rates decreased. However, a smaller number of children did not reduce maternal work. In urban contexts of big cities, large families are not very common. In contrast to it, the use of social networks such as Facebook grows. The percentage of Brazilian women between 30 and 39 years-old that uses the internet is higher than 50%. There was the hypothesis that online social networks could complement the support needed by mothers. Understanding that women need total support to take care of children and that nowadays the world is connected through internet, the intention of this work was to discuss contemporary motherhood in urban society and the internet as the context of online support to parenthood. Two studies were done with an online support group of pregnant women/mothers on Facebook: 1) Analysis of collected posts (during 30 months), having as an objective the comprehension of maternal speech as well as the most discussed topics; 2) The investigation on the perception about support networks both online and offline, on how online support is achieved, what is mothers main interest in this kind of online support and a socioeconomic profile. Study 1 analyzed the content of 2510 posts showing two category groups: psychological (45%) and non-psychological (55%). On the first one, mothers posts were focused on Daniel Sterns motherhood constellation categories: 1) life growth (50%); 2) primary bonding (8%); 3) maternal matrix (40%); 4) identitys reorganization (2%). In the second group four other categories were identified: 5) business/publicity (54%); 6) pregnancy development/giving birth (9%); 7) after-birth (5%); 8) indications/functional requests (32%). Study 2 participants had an average of 31,86 years-old, 88,6% of them finished their college studies, most of them live with their partners, are working and have their family income higher than 10 times the minimum wage (48%). Their main interests are related to health and baby care. Most of them indicate they read the posts more often than the comment or post some kind of doubt they might have. The online group is perceived by most part of them as an important help on the exercise of motherhood. The scale of social support in general presents bigger scores than the scale of online social support with differences in every dimension. The scale of online social support points out that both information and emotional support dimensions present bigger scores, revealing the relevance of both information and encouragement exchanges during tough moments in life. Besides, it points to the significant difference between the emotional dimension and other scale dimensions. And finally, the online support group appeared as an important tool of sharing information between women that are going through the same moment in life, as well as to parenthood in general, being useful as a service that could not be pictured decades ago. New studies can deepen the theme as well as amplify the results of this investigation

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo buscou contribuições da psicologia do desenvolvimento, pela perspectiva da psicologia evolucionista e sociocultural, para compreender a construção da maternidade contemporânea com uso do Facebook como suporte online. No último século ocorreram muitas transformações no papel social da mulher, o mercado de trabalho a incorporou, o nível de escolaridade aumentou, a taxa de natalidade caiu. Entretanto, a diminuição no número de filhos não reduziu o trabalho materno. Em contextos urbanos de grandes cidades, as famílias estendidas são menos frequentes. Em contraste, o uso de redes sociais, tipo Facebook, aumenta. O percentual de brasileiras (30-39 anos) que utiliza a internet supera 50%. Hipotetizou-se que redes sociais online podem complementar o apoio demandado pelas mães. Desse modo, entendendo que mulheres precisam de apoio para cuidar das crianças e que o mundo atual está interconectado através da internet, buscou-se abordar a maternidade contemporânea em sociedade urbana e a internet no contexto do suporte online à parentalidade. Foram feitos dois estudos com amostra de um grupo de suporte online para gestantes/mães no Facebook: 1) Análise de postagens coletadas (30 meses), objetivando compreender discurso materno e principais temas abordados; 2) Investigação da percepção sobre rede de apoio geral e online, como o apoio online pode ser conseguido, o que interessa às mães neste tipo de apoio e perfil sociodemográfico. O Estudo 1, analisou conteúdo de 2.510 postagens apontando dois grupos de categorias: psicológicas (45%) e não-psicológicas (55%). No primeiro, o discurso enquadra-se na teoria da constelação da maternidade de Daniel Stern: 1) vida crescimento (50%); 2) relacionar-se primário (8%); 3) matriz de apoio (40%); 4) reorganização da identidade (2%). O segundo indicou quatro categorias: 5) negócios/divulgação (54%); 6) desenvolvimento gestacional/parto (9%); 7) pós-parto (5%); 8) indicações/pedidos práticos (32%). O Estudo 2 apontou que as participantes têm idade média de 31,86 anos, 88,6% possui graduação completa, a maioria mora com companheiro, exerce atividade profissional remunerada e tem renda familiar mensal superior a 10 salários mínimos (48%). Os principais interesses estão nos temas relacionados à saúde e cuidados com bebê. A maioria indica que lê as postagens com mais frequência do que expõem suas dúvidas. Grande parte percebe o grupo online como uma ajuda importante no exercício da sua maternidade. A escala de apoio social (presencial) apresenta escores maiores do que a escala de apoio social online com diferença em todas as dimensões. A escala de apoio social online aponta que as dimensões apoio informacional e emocional apresentam escores maiores, revelando que a troca de informações e o encorajamento em momentos difíceis da vida parecem ser os mais relevantes, apontando, principalmente, que há diferença significativa entre a dimensão emocional e as demais dimensões da escala. Resumindo, o grupo de suporte online se mostrou uma importante ferramenta para compartilhar informações entre mulheres que estão passando pelo mesmo momento do ciclo vital, e o suporte online um instrumento relevante ao suporte à parentalidade, prestando-se a um serviço que não poderia ser imaginado décadas atrás. Novos estudos poderão aprofundar e ampliar os resultados desta investigação / In order to understand the construction of contemporary motherhood with the use of Facebook as an online support, this study has been based on contributions from developmental psychology, under the perspective of both evolutionary and sociocultural psychology. Plenty of changes have happened on womens social role in the last century: Women were incorporated into the labor market, their years of formal education increased and birth rates decreased. However, a smaller number of children did not reduce maternal work. In urban contexts of big cities, large families are not very common. In contrast to it, the use of social networks such as Facebook grows. The percentage of Brazilian women between 30 and 39 years-old that uses the internet is higher than 50%. There was the hypothesis that online social networks could complement the support needed by mothers. Understanding that women need total support to take care of children and that nowadays the world is connected through internet, the intention of this work was to discuss contemporary motherhood in urban society and the internet as the context of online support to parenthood. Two studies were done with an online support group of pregnant women/mothers on Facebook: 1) Analysis of collected posts (during 30 months), having as an objective the comprehension of maternal speech as well as the most discussed topics; 2) The investigation on the perception about support networks both online and offline, on how online support is achieved, what is mothers main interest in this kind of online support and a socioeconomic profile. Study 1 analyzed the content of 2510 posts showing two category groups: psychological (45%) and non-psychological (55%). On the first one, mothers posts were focused on Daniel Sterns motherhood constellation categories: 1) life growth (50%); 2) primary bonding (8%); 3) maternal matrix (40%); 4) identitys reorganization (2%). In the second group four other categories were identified: 5) business/publicity (54%); 6) pregnancy development/giving birth (9%); 7) after-birth (5%); 8) indications/functional requests (32%). Study 2 participants had an average of 31,86 years-old, 88,6% of them finished their college studies, most of them live with their partners, are working and have their family income higher than 10 times the minimum wage (48%). Their main interests are related to health and baby care. Most of them indicate they read the posts more often than the comment or post some kind of doubt they might have. The online group is perceived by most part of them as an important help on the exercise of motherhood. The scale of social support in general presents bigger scores than the scale of online social support with differences in every dimension. The scale of online social support points out that both information and emotional support dimensions present bigger scores, revealing the relevance of both information and encouragement exchanges during tough moments in life. Besides, it points to the significant difference between the emotional dimension and other scale dimensions. And finally, the online support group appeared as an important tool of sharing information between women that are going through the same moment in life, as well as to parenthood in general, being useful as a service that could not be pictured decades ago. New studies can deepen the theme as well as amplify the results of this investigation

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This thesis explores how single parents utilise online forums, particularly Reddit, to navigate parenting challenges and mental health issues. The study involves a mixed-method approach which includes sentiment analysis and thematic analysis.  Through a comprehensive analysis of forum posts and comments, the research identifies key themes and support mechanisms expressed by single parents in addition to the quantitative data from sentimental analysis representing the emotional tone of the text in the posts. The findings reveal that online communities serve as crucial platforms for emotional support, knowledge exchange, and community building. This research contributes to understanding the role of digital spaces in supporting single parents and offers insights for designing more effective online social support intervention by addressing AI-driven features, expert moderation and bridging the gap between online and offline social support for single parents.

Magister Artium - MA / Social networking sites are used on a daily basis, to communicate with friends we have known for quite some time as well as make new friends from all over the globe - a global phenomenon. According to Aparicio (2011) the use of social networking sites have given way to a new “social dynamic” where friendships are formed with individuals from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations. Larsen (2007) continues to state that social network sites make for the creation of new friendships and the maintenance of new relationships. Using social networking sites to develop relationships provides us with new social skills, but through constant use of these sites we lose valuable interpersonal skills learnt through the use of face to face interaction (Aparicio, 2011). This thesis investigated the notion of social networking sites, specifically focusing on interpersonal relationships and language use within the networking context. The social networking site in question is that of Twitter, as majority of existing studies in this area focuses on the more popular Facebook. The main objective was to determine whether social networking sites, specifically Twitter, influence the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships and language use. Participants included a group of 11 males and 11 females (22 in total), ranging from the ages of 17 to 33 and from different geographical locations (e.g. United Kingdom, South Africa, Tokyo, and so on). These participants frequently keep in contact with each other. Four ways in which Twitter has been adapted to emulate face to face communication have been found, namely: (1) the use of Paralinguistic and Prosodic Features to imitate speech, (2) Ustream, although not prominent within the data collected, is used to make up for the lack of face to face communication.This, however, is one-way; only one user provides a video link while those communicating with him or her (as there can be more than one) would type messages, (3) as expected a variety of shortenings can be found within the data collected. Shortenings imitate speech among the younger generation, and (4) participants make use of an informal register, as the most common type of relationship found on Twitter is that of friendships. Both strong and weak ties exist in the collected data; with weak ties being the majority. It is possible for weak ties to become strong ties. All online relationships start off as weak and gradually, over time, become strong ties. This is done through establishing trust between participants and communicating on a regular basis. Paolillo (1999) found that online relationships manifests as both weak and strong. However, “online ties are not ‘branded’ as weak ties” and these ties differ in quality; “those who have regular contact have strong ties and those with less frequent contact have weaker ties weak”. Social support is evident in the collected data and possible in online, textbased communication. In is manifested in four types of support, namely: instrumental, emotional, informational, and appraisal. The most common type of support found in the collected data is that of informational support. With regards to support activation strategies, most tweet fall under the ‘ask’ and ‘cry’ types of strategies. Also, considering the amount of emoticons found in the data, little or no emoticons were found in the activation strategies. There are also more indirect support activation strategies as opposed to direct. This could possibly be due to the fact that majority of the ties are ‘in the weak stage’. Textese has not been adapted in anyway; the same elements used by texters and IMers are used by tweeters, such as initialisms, phonetic spellings and contractions. Although present in the Twitter data, elements of textese did not occur as frequently as that found in e.g. Bieswanger’s (2007) and Thurlow’s (2003) studies; however more elements of Twitter language was found. If anything, the characteristics of textese are well-suited for Twitter; as shortened forms of words would make it easier for users to maintain a character count below the imposed limitation and it promotes the idea of writing quick and concise messages instead of filling message space with irrelevant content. With regards to the difference in the way male and female participants use language in terms of the linguistic characteristics of textese and the language unique to Twitter and the use of paralinguistic and prosodic features, it can be said that females tend to use these characteristics more than males do.

The term ‘epidemic’ is often used to describe the obesity phenomenon and indicate that overweight or obesity is a worldwide phenomenon. While the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been increasing, reviews on overweight and obesity studies indicate a clear need for further effectiveness studies of innovative and cost-effective strategies to improve the long-term outcomes of weight loss and weight maintenance programmes in large populations. Current weight loss interventions, while successful in the short term, are often not cost effective enough to deliver on a large scale because they are labour and time intensive. Most importantly, they do not cover large populations. Despite some individual successful weight loss in these interventions programmes, individuals still need to self- manage their weight following intervention. It is unrealistic to expect health professionals and clinicians to provide timely and long-term ongoing support for 2.1 billions overweight and obesity populations around the world (OECD Health Statics, 2014).Therefore, the solutions for weight control may be more effective if grounded within the online community, that is, design long-term solutions that build and draw on social capital to support weight maintenance and are scaled to cope with large populations. Understanding the individual weight loss experiences through informal online social support and utilising the advantages of computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be a timely and cost-effective way to help people self-manage their weight. A three-month online longitudinal phenomenological interview of 17 informants recruited from an online community forum was applied to explore the weight loss experiences with assistance of informal online social support. Four weight loss threads selected by the informants during their weight loss process were also interpreted to map out the key roles of informal online social support and the interaction process that takes place in an online community forum. This research describes the lived experiences of individuals’ self-help weight loss process and maps out the critical moments and differential experiences involved in the Stages of Change (SoC) to explain the individual differences during different weight loss stages. This research also identifies the interrelationships of Processes of Change (PoC) for facilitating behaviour change. The findings of this research contribute to demonstrate the interaction process between community members and the process of providing and receiving social support at different individual members’ weight loss stages, which helped them to continue to lose weight or maintain their weight. The informal online social support could meet different self-help weight loss individual’s needs during different weight loss stages, which is difficult to be provided by the healthcare providers. The findings also contribute to social marketing as a way of offering a cost-effective and efficient way to assist the self-help individual to self- manage their weight in the long term. It may also be a viable way of addressing the issues of costs and labour intensity found in the current weight loss interventions that want to serve large populations.