A Study Of Mutual Aid Among Depressive Groups In Virtual Communities

In the era of new media,the use of health virtual communities to achieve mutual social support by depression groups has become a social phenomenon that cannot be ignored.Making use of Douban's "Depression Self-Help" group as the research object,the research trying to explore from the three dimensions of cognition,emotion and volition why the depression group chooses to put their demands for social support in the virtual world instead of real support,and explore depression The meaning given to the depression group by the virtual community and the possible meaning for the society.After using coding-based content analysis and Internet fields,and tries to use semistructured interviews,the study found that the difficult real social support environment is the motivation for patients to move to virtual communities to exchange social support,that is,the public has a stigma of depression patients,the shortage of social psychiatric medical resources and low-intimacy native families make it difficult for patients.Obtain empathy and emotional support from the general public,social medical system and native families.From the perspective of cognitive dimension,the anonymity and physical absence of virtual communities have brought a great sense of security to patients.Patients use virtual communities as a medium to draw social support to achieve the purpose of improving subjective well-being and to join patients Mutual assistance in virtual communities has played a positive role.However,as patients get better and better,their subjective well-being evaluation criteria change.The negative "mimicry environment" in the virtual community prevents the patients from obtaining ideal social support,which in turn leads them to withdraw from the virtual community for mutual assistance.Emotional support is the type of social support that patients with depression most want to obtain in virtual communities.On the emotional dimension,there are three modes of emotional mutual assistance among patients in virtual communities,namely,tree-hole mutual assistance,virtual companionship mode,and mutual self-identification.These three models meet the social needs,respect needs and self-realization needs of users.In the dimension of will,virtual communities endow patients with equal rights to social interaction,disease information,and expression rights,but most members still do not have the right to speak and manage.With the power of private individuals alone,it is difficult for relevant communities to expand their influence.,To achieve empowerment at the community level.Patients want to use virtual communities to escape the dominance of medical power,but in fact they have entered a new dominance of power.In the virtual community,opinion leaders and management administrators have the inherent advantages of traffic blessing,and their help-seeking needs are more likely to be seen by more people,thereby increasing the probability of obtaining social support;while patients who master higher cultural capital masters Higher writing skills help them accurately express their needs for help.Compared with patients with low cultural capital,their requests for help are more likely to be responded to.Virtual communities have many important meanings,such as being a social safety valve,the social meaning of filling medical vacancies,and the tool meaning of helping individuals realize their self-worth.However,there are also many difficulties in community development.In short,it is difficult for the virtual community of depression to grow and develop only by relying on private forces.