Advances in Social Media Research:Past, Present and Future

Social media comprises communication websites that facilitate relationship forming between users from diverse backgrounds, resulting in a rich social structure. User generated content encourages inquiry and decision-making. Given the relevance of social media to various stakeholders, it has received significant attention from researchers of various fields, including information systems. There exists no comprehensive review that integrates and synthesises the findings of literature on social media. This study discusses the findings of 132 papers (in selected IS journals) on social media and social networking published between 1997 and 2017. Most papers reviewed here examine the behavioural side of social media, investigate the aspect of reviews and recommendations, and study its integration for organizational purposes. Furthermore, many studies have investigated the viability of online communities/social media as a marketing medium, while others have explored various aspects of social media, including the risks associated with its use, the value that it creates, and the negative stigma attached to it within workplaces. The use of social media for information sharing during critical events as well as for seeking and/or rendering help has also been investigated in prior research. Other contexts include political and public administration, and the comparison between traditional and social media. Overall, our study identifies multiple emergent themes in the existing corpus, thereby furthering our understanding of advances in social media research. The integrated view of the extant literature that our study presents can help avoid duplication by future researchers, whilst offering fruitful lines of enquiry to help shape research for this emerging field

“It’s cool to feel sad”: A thematic analysis of the social media experiences of university students who have self-harmed

Background: Suicide and self-harm rates amongst young people have been identified as a public mental health concern with emerging links to social media use. Aim: The current study aimed to qualitatively explore the social media experiences of university students who have self-harmed, as they have been identified as a group vulnerable to suicide. Method: Semi-structured interviews were completed at two time points with students aged 21 and under who have self-harmed whilst at university, with transcripts of interviews analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Results: Three organising themes were identified: 1) Instagram vs reality, 2) A double-edged sword, 3) Curating online spaces. The analysis provided a developmental overview of patterns across students’ experiences online, identifying negative social comparisons, the romanticisation of mental illness, and the development of their insight and rules to engage with social media in a helpful way. Conclusions: The study provided an insight into the evolution of the online lives of students who have self-harmed, highlighting key modifiable risk factors that researchers, policymakers and clinicians could meaningfully target to promote ‘digital hygiene’ and the reduction of potential harm from social media

Designing for mod development: user creativity as product development strategy on the firm-hosted 3D software platform

The thesis is designed to improve our understanding of user participation in Web-based development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry. It aims to investigate whether the creative capacities of users and their contributions to the online firm-hosted 3D platform are indicative of a novel configuration of production that influences the processes of product development across firm boundaries. The thesis mobilizes the user participation literature developing in media research as its main theoretical framework. It builds on insights derived from work on user participation in media sites as seen through a cultural lens, in particular, as developed in Henry Jenkins' notions of 'participatory' and 'convergence culture'. The user participation literature is supported by a combination of insights drawn from work on communities of practice and user-centred innovation so as to offer a more robust approach to examine and appreciate the firm-hosted 3D platform as a site of user participation. More specifically, the conceptual framework for the study provides a basis for an examination of the ways a software developer finn encourages user participation in a market and of how this enables and facilitâtes particular modes of user creativity. These are shown to shape and maintain a firm-hosted platform that aids product development efforts that are expected to benefit the developer fimi. An empirical study of the platform, Second Life, provides the basis for the analysis of finn-user interactions which are shown to underpin a distinctive finn leaming process in the context of product development that occurs across permeable fimi boundaries. The thesis yields insight into the way a developer firm invites its user base to partner with it in product development, indicating how aspects of user participation associated with non-market dynamics are embedded in commercial activity and professionalism. The pivotal role of users is revealed in the design, development and sustainability of a firm-hosted 3D product. The findings point to interesting relationships between the distinctive creative capacities of users and the range of capabilities afforded by the firm-provided design space. Variations in user participation and contributions to product development suggest that particular patterns of learning opportunities occur. The analysis yields several new concepts including a 'modification effect market' which are used to extend existing conceptualizations of user participation in digitai development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry

Knowledge Modelling and Learning through Cognitive Networks

One of the most promising developments in modelling knowledge is cognitive network science, which aims to investigate cognitive phenomena driven by the networked, associative organization of knowledge. For example, investigating the structure of semantic memory via semantic networks has illuminated how memory recall patterns influence phenomena such as creativity, memory search, learning, and more generally, knowledge acquisition, exploration, and exploitation. In parallel, neural network models for artificial intelligence (AI) are also becoming more widespread as inferential models for understanding which features drive language-related phenomena such as meaning reconstruction, stance detection, and emotional profiling. Whereas cognitive networks map explicitly which entities engage in associative relationships, neural networks perform an implicit mapping of correlations in cognitive data as weights, obtained after training over labelled data and whose interpretation is not immediately evident to the experimenter. This book aims to bring together quantitative, innovative research that focuses on modelling knowledge through cognitive and neural networks to gain insight into mechanisms driving cognitive processes related to knowledge structuring, exploration, and learning. The book comprises a variety of publication types, including reviews and theoretical papers, empirical research, computational modelling, and big data analysis. All papers here share a commonality: they demonstrate how the application of network science and AI can extend and broaden cognitive science in ways that traditional approaches cannot

Social media mental health analysis framework through applied computational approaches

Studies have shown that mental illness burdens not only public health and productivity but also established market economies throughout the world. However, mental disorders are difficult to diagnose and monitor through traditional methods, which heavily rely on interviews, questionnaires and surveys, resulting in high under-diagnosis and under-treatment rates. The increasing use of online social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is now a common part of people’s everyday life. The continuous and real-time user-generated content often reflects feelings, opinions, social status and behaviours of individuals, creating an unprecedented wealth of person-specific information. With advances in data science, social media has already been increasingly employed in population health monitoring and more recently mental health applications to understand mental disorders as well as to develop online screening and intervention tools. However, existing research efforts are still in their infancy, primarily aimed at highlighting the potential of employing social media in mental health research. The majority of work is developed on ad hoc datasets and lacks a systematic research pipeline. [Continues.]</div

Designing a Patient-Centered Clinical Workflow to Assess Cyberbully Experiences of Youths in the U.S. Healthcare System

Cyberbullying or online harassment is often defined as when someone repeatedly and intentionally harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of others aiming to scare, anger or shame them using electronic devices [296]. Youths experiencing cyberbullying report higher levels of anxiety and depression, mental distress, suicide thoughts, and substance abuse than their non-bullied peers [360, 605, 261, 354]. Even though bullying is associated with significant health problems, to date, very little youth anti-bullying efforts are initiated and directed in clinical settings. There is presently no standardized procedure or workflow across health systems for systematically assessing cyberbullying or other equally dangerous online activities among vulnerable groups like children or adolescents [599]. Therefore, I developed a series of research projects to link digital indicators of cyberbullying or online harassment to clinical practices by advocating design considerations for a patient-centered clinical assessment and workflow that addresses patients’ needs and expectations to ensure quality care. Through this dissertation, I aim to answer these high-level research questions:RQ1. How does the presence of severe online harassment on online platforms contribute to negative experiences and risky behaviors within vulnerable populations? RQ2. How efficient is the current mechanism of screening these risky online negative experiences and behaviors, specifically related to cyberbully, within at-risk populations like adolescent in clinical settings? RQ3. How might evidence of activities and negative harassing experiences on online platforms best be integrated into electronic health records during clinical treatment? I first explore how harassment is presented within different social media platforms from diverse contexts and cultural norms (study 1,2, and 3); next, by analyzing actual patient data, I address current limitations in the screening process in clinical settings that fail to efficiently address core aspect of cyberbullying and their consequences within adolescent patients (study 4 and 5); finally, connecting all my findings, I recommend specific design guidelines for a refined screening tool and structured processes for implementation and integration of the screened data into patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) for better patient assessment and treatment outcomes around cyberbully within adolescent patients (study 6)

Research on Protection of Minors: A literature Review and Interconnected Frameworks Implications for VSP Regulation and Beyond

Ofcom commissioned the Institute for Connected Communities at the University of East London (UEL) to conduct this research in order to help inform VSP guidance. The particular areas of interest identified by Ofcom were:Which risks of harm are most prevalent among minors on VSPs (considering both quantitative and qualitative evidence)? How do these harms manifest on VSPs? Are different VSP characteristics relevant to protecting users from harms