By Holly Slocum
Each year, more than 7.5 million people turn to online communities for social support. As online communication is more commonly utilized, it’s become critical to understand how the medium can affect the outcome of supportive interactions.
Rains and colleagues aimed to answer 3 basic questions about online social support:
– How does the medium affect the support interaction? Participants were asked to consider their level of uncertainty, worry, and self-efficacy after receiving support.
– How does the medium affect the participants’ perception of the support giver? Participants were asked to consider how knowledgeable, caring, and likeable they found the support giver.
– And how does the message type- whether it’s information-based or emotional support- affect the support interaction?
To help answer these questions, 82 university students were asked how prepared they felt for finding a job after graduation, then given supportive advice. Half of the participants received support online, while the other half received support face-to-face. To ensure it was the medium being effectively tested, the support message was the same in online interactions as it was face-to-face. Similarly, half of the participants were given information-based support, while the other half received emotional support.
Consistent with the well-known (yet mostly disputed) “cues-filtered-out” theory (reduced cues lead to more impersonal communication), people who received online support found that they had both a greater sense of uncertainty and worry than those who received face-to-face support. Interestingly, however, there was no difference in feelings of self-efficacy between the two groups. Despite feeling more worried after receiving online support, students felt no less capable of success.
Also interesting is that, regardless of whether it was online or face-to-face, there was no change in how knowledgeable, caring, or likeable the participants thought the support givers were. As future researchers continue to explore why online support may be less effective, this helps illustrate that the obstacles lie with the interaction itself, and not with the person providing the support.
As for the message types, researchers found that information-based messages resulted in participants feeling somewhat less uncertain and more comfortable with that uncertainty. However, the difference was minimal, and there was also no other meaningful change in how the participants felt about the interaction or the support giver.
Although the results of the study seem to be bad news for online social support, there are several considerations that should be made. Recent research shows online communication increases the user’s self-awareness, which could lead to a greater focus on one’s emotions- as well as what is causing their stress. This could explain students feeling a heightened sense of uncertainty and worry about finding a job, without feeling any less capable of it accomplishing it. Another possibility is that, with reduced social cues online, participants had more room to ruminate on their stress. Rumination has been linked to both uncertainty and worry in recent studies, as well. Other limitations could include the scripted nature of the support messages, the limited duration of the interaction, and the relatively small sample size of the group.
With an increasing number of people seeking support online, being able to provide more effective interactions is crucial. While online support may not up to par with face-to-face interactions yet, it’s worth nothing that it isn’t harmful either. No results demonstrated that online support was ineffective… only that it was less effective. This presents a tremendous area of opportunity to explore how people adapt to reduced social cues and to better understand how to improve online support interactions.
Rains, S. A., Brunner, S. R., Akers, C., Pavlich, C. A., & Goktas, S. (2016). Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and social support. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 34(8), 1186-1205. doi:10.1177/0265407516670533