poster

How much is a "like" worth? Engagement and Retention in an Online Health Community

Authors:

CSCW '20 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2020 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Pages 413 - 417

https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418320

Published: 17 October 2020 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

Online health communities are designed to help their users acquire social support, but developing self-sustaining communities capable of providing that support requires long-term user retention. Therefore, understanding the factors early in a user's experience that predict their long-term retention is important. In this study, we explore the impact of short-term visitor engagement on long-term user retention. We study users of CaringBridge.org, an online health community for communicating about health journeys, using survival analysis methods to quantify the impact of engagement on retention. First, we explicitly compare the impact of non-text "likes'' to text comments, surprisingly finding that likes exceed comments in their impact on retention for some users. Second, we compare less active and more active users in their response to visitor engagement, finding that more active users are less affected by short-term visitor engagement. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of OHCs and for future work on visitor engagement.

References

[1]

1]Nazanin Andalibi and Andrea Forte. 2018. Responding to Sensitive Disclosures on Social Media: A Decision-MakingFramework.ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.25, 6 (Dec. 2018), 31:1--31:29. https://doi.org/10.1145/3241044

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Antonina Bambina. 2007.Online Social Support: The Interplay of Social Networks and Computer-Mediated Communication.Cambria Press. Google-Books-ID: DIW0YKEBcPsC.

Google Scholar

[3]

Jofen Han and Jo Wiley. 2013.Digital illness narratives: a new form of health communication.(2013).http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/ichita_transactions/18/?utm_content=bufferfb481&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Google Scholar

[4]

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton. 2010. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: AMeta-analytic Review.PLOS Medicine7, 7 (July 2010), e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Crossref

Google Scholar

[5]

Maia Jacobs, Jeremy Johnson, and Elizabeth D. Mynatt. 2018. MyPath: Investigating Breast Cancer Patients? Use ofPersonalized Health Information.Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.2, CSCW (Nov. 2018), 78:1--78:21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274347

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Zachary Levonian, Marco Dow, Drew Erikson, Sourojit Ghosh, Hannah Miller Hillberg, Saumik Narayanan, Loren Terveen,and Svetlana Yarosh. 2020. Patterns of Patient and Caregiver Mutual Support Connections in an Online Health Community.Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing--CSCW?20(Oct.2020), 46. https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.16172

Google Scholar

[7]

Haiwei Ma, C. Estelle Smith, Lu He, Saumik Narayanan, Robert A. Giaquinto, Roni Evans, Linda Hanson, and SvetlanaYarosh. 2017. Write for Life: Persisting in Online Health Communities Through Expressive Writing and Social Support.Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.1, CSCW (Dec. 2017), 73:1--73:24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134708

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

Michael Massimi, Jill P. Dimond, and Christopher A. Le Dantec. 2012. Finding a New Normal: The Role of Technology inLife Disruptions. InProceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '12). ACM,New York, NY, USA, 719--728. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145314

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

Anthony McCosker and Raya Darcy. 2013. Living with Cancer.Information, Communication & Society16, 8 (Oct. 2013),1266--1285. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.758303

Crossref

Google Scholar

[10]

Bert N. Uchino, Kimberly Bowen, Robert Kent de Grey, Jude Mikel, and Edwin B. Fisher. 2018. Social Support and PhysicalHealth: Models, Mechanisms, and Opportunities. InPrinciples and Concepts of Behavioral Medicine: A Global Handbook,Edwin B. Fisher, Linda D. Cameron, Alan J. Christensen, Ulrike Ehlert, Yan Guo, Brian Oldenburg, and Frank J. Snoek(Eds.). Springer New York, New York, NY, 341--372. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0--387--93826--4_12

Crossref

Google Scholar

[11]

Yi-Chia Wang, Robert Kraut, and John M. Levine. 2012. To Stay or Leave?: The Relationship of Emotional and InformationalSupport to Commitment in Online Health Support Groups. InProceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on ComputerSupported Cooperative Work (CSCW '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 833--842. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145329

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Smith CMiller Hillberg HLevonian Z(2023)"Thoughts & Prayers" or " ❤️ & 🙏 ": How the Release of New Reactions on CaringBridge Reshapes Supportive Communication in Health CrisesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100357:CSCW2(1-39)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610035
Pater JCoupe ANova FPfafman RCarroll JBrouwer ABohn CLi JTodd NChang FGuha S(2023)Social Media is not a Health Proxy: Differences Between Social Media and Electronic Health Record Reports of Post-COVID SymptomsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35796247:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579624
Nguyen LNgwenyama OBandyopadhyay ANallaperuma K(2023)Realising the potential of digital health communities: a study of the role of social factors in community engagementEuropean Journal of Information Systems10.1080/0960085X.2023.2252390(1-36)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2023.2252390
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

How much is a "like" worth? Engagement and Retention in an Online Health Community
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing

Recommendations

Personas in online health communities

Display Omitted We show Caretakers, Scientists, Adventurers, and Opportunists as personas in OHCs.We present social quality and quantity metrics practitioners can use to detect these personas.These personas help improve retention in online social health ...
Write for Life: Persisting in Online Health Communities through Expressive Writing and Social Support

Expressive writing has been shown to improve physical, mental, and social health outcomes for patients struggling with difficult diagnoses. In many online health communities, writing comprises a substantial portion of the user experience, yet little work ...
Using Interaction Data to Predict Engagement with Interactive Media
MM '21: Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Multimedia

Media is evolving from traditional linear narratives to personalised experiences, where control over information (or how it is presented) is given to individual audience members. Measuring and understanding audience engagement with this media is ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

CSCW '20 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2020 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 2020

559 pages

ISBN:9781450380591

DOI:10.1145/3406865

General Chairs:
Matthew Bietz
University of California, Irvine
,
Andrea Wiggins

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 17 October 2020

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Poster

Conference

CSCW '20

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

CSCW '20: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 17 - 21, 2020

Virtual Event, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

Upcoming Conference

CSCW '25

Sponsor:
sigchi

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 18 - 22, 2025

Bergen , Norway

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

4
Total Citations
View Citations
254
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)27
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 10 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Smith CMiller Hillberg HLevonian Z(2023)"Thoughts & Prayers" or " ❤️ & 🙏 ": How the Release of New Reactions on CaringBridge Reshapes Supportive Communication in Health CrisesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100357:CSCW2(1-39)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610035
Pater JCoupe ANova FPfafman RCarroll JBrouwer ABohn CLi JTodd NChang FGuha S(2023)Social Media is not a Health Proxy: Differences Between Social Media and Electronic Health Record Reports of Post-COVID SymptomsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35796247:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579624
Nguyen LNgwenyama OBandyopadhyay ANallaperuma K(2023)Realising the potential of digital health communities: a study of the role of social factors in community engagementEuropean Journal of Information Systems10.1080/0960085X.2023.2252390(1-36)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2023.2252390
Meyerhoff JKornfield RMohr DReddy M(2022)Meeting Young Adults' Social Support Needs across the Health Behavior Change Journey: Implications for Digital Mental Health ToolsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35552036:CSCW2(1-33)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555203

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Personas in online health communities

Write for Life: Persisting in Online Health Communities through Expressive Writing and Social Support

Using Interaction Data to Predict Engagement with Interactive Media