The Dual Value of the Web: Risks and Benefits of the Use of the Internet in Disorders with A Self-Destructive Component in Adolescents and Young Adults

Understanding Discussions of Sexual Assault in Young Women on a Peer Support Mental Health App: A Content Analysis

Trauma narratives may have been influenced by the Me Too movement, with thousands of individuals disclosing sexual violence stories online. Youth, the largest demographic of online users, may prefer the anonymity of the Internet to discuss experiences of sexual assault. Understanding the ways that young women, especially those experiencing mental health difficulties, discuss their experiences is important as they are at higher risk of revictimization and continued poor mental health. We searched for terms related to acts of sexual assault on a mental health peer-support app, TalkLife, and compared the number of posts during the initial wave of the Me Too movement (October 2017-March 2018) to the same time period in the previous year (October 2016-March 2017). We found a significant increase in posts related to sexual assault of 49.7% between the Pre and Post Me Too time periods (p < .001), controlling for a general increase in posts. A content analysis of 700 randomly selected posts found that a substantial number of young women used TalkLife to discuss their experiences of sexual assault, and these self-disclosures were mostly hopeless or depressing in tone. Additionally, neither the nature nor the number of self-disclosures varied across time points. The negative tone of the self-disclosures in the current study is worrying because the way women talk about their trauma can shape how they understand it, which could lead to negative self-appraisal and continued mental health difficulties. Online spaces have the potential to support young women and facilitate help-seeking, but we must be attentive to how they are used.

Psycholinguistic changes in the communication of adolescent users in a suicidal ideation online community during the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, increases in suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adolescents have been registered. Many adolescents experiencing suicidal ideation turn to online communities for social support. In this retrospective observational study, we investigated the communication-language style, contents and user activity-in 7975 unique posts and 51,119 comments by N = 2862 active adolescent users in a large suicidal ideation support community (SISC) on the social media website reddit.com in the onset period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found significant relative changes in language style markers for hopelessness such as negative emotion words (+ 10.00%) and positive emotion words (- 3.45%) as well as for social disengagement such as social references (- 8.63%) and 2nd person pronouns (- 33.97%) since the outbreak of the pandemic. Using topic modeling with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), we identified significant changes in content for the topics Hopelessness (+ 23.98%), Suicide Methods (+ 17.11%), Social Support (- 14.91%), and Reaching Out to users (- 28.97%). Changes in user activity point to an increased expression of mental health issues and decreased engagement with other users. The results indicate a potential shift in communication patterns with more adolescent users expressing their suicidal ideation rather than relating with or supporting other users during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Use: The Perspective of Women with Eating Disorders Experience

Even though the internet is a common source of information and treatment for people with eating disorder (ED) experience, the motives for illness-related searches have rarely been investigated beyond the perceived negatives. This study explores how women with ED experience reflect upon the advantages and disadvantages of their ED-related internet use. We expand the framework of the Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G) into the context of users with ED experience through 30 semi-structured interviews with women with ED experience, aged 16 to 28, who live in the Czech Republic. Thematic analysis revealed four themes related to the pros and cons of their internet usage: ED-related Information Content; Internet Features Important to Users; Body Image; and Social Interaction. The results challenge the binary view of ED-related internet use and question some presumptions of U&G Theory within the specific context of users with ED experience.

Orthorexia Nervosa in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Literature Review

Adolescents are a nutritionally vulnerable population; eating disorders are more common among adolescents and young adults. Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is a non-formally recognized condition characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with eating healthy and "pure" foods; the quality and not the quantity of food is pivotal in ON. ON is a complex entity which can be associated with severe diet restrictions, a negative impact on social relationships, and with physical and mental health conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder. In light of this, a literature review regarding the background, diagnosis, features, risk factors, interplay with the social media, and management of ON is presented in this article, with a focus on adolescents and young adults.

Who Is Exposed to Harmful Online Content? The Role of Risk and Protective Factors Among Czech, Finnish, and Spanish Adolescents

Although adolescents' exposure to harmful online content has been linked to decreased subjective well-being and offline risky behaviors, there is limited research on the factors that underlie such problematic online behavior. Using the conceptual framework of Problem Behavior Theory, this study examined the role of risk (i.e., emotional problems, sensation seeking) and protective (i.e., the quality of family environment, social support from friends) factors in exposure to harmful online content among 4473 12- to 16-year-olds (M = 13.9, SD = 1.3, 49% girls) in the Czech Republic, Finland, and Spain. Individual country samples included 1848 adolescents from the Czech Republic (age: M = 14, SD = 1.4; 51% girls), 788 from Finland (age: M = 13.9, SD = 1.3; 52% girls), and 1837 from Spain (age: M = 13.5, SD = 1.2; 47% girls). In all of the sampled countries, emotional problems and sensation seeking served as risk factors, whereas good family relationships were protective. In some countries, the effects of emotional problems and sensation seeking were moderated by the quality of the family environment and social support from friends. These moderating effects suggest that individual risk factors for exposure to harmful online content may be buffered by a positive family environment and friends' support. The findings revealed similarities in the risk and protective factors underlying online problem behavior across three different countries. They demonstrate that the mechanisms proposed by Problem Behavior Theory can help to understand the etiology of adolescent problem behavior across different countries as well as offline and online contexts.

Analyzing big data in social media: Text and network analyses of an eating disorder forum

OBJECTIVE

Social media plays an important role in everyday life of young people. Numerous studies claim negative effects of social media and media in general on eating disorder risk factors. Despite the availability of big data, only few studies have exploited the possibilities so far in the field of eating disorders.

METHOD

Methods for data extraction, computerized content analysis, and network analysis will be introduced. Strategies and methods will be exemplified for an ad-hoc dataset of 4,247 posts and 34,118 comments by 3,029 users of the proed forum on Reddit.

RESULTS

Text analysis with latent Dirichlet allocation identified nine topics related to social support and eating disorder specific content. Social network analysis describes the overall communication patterns, and could identify community structures and most influential users. A linear network autocorrelation model was applied to estimate associations in language among network neighbors. The supplement contains R code for data extraction and analyses.

DISCUSSION

This paper provides an introduction to investigating social media data, and will hopefully stimulate big data social media research in eating disorders. When applied in real-time, the methods presented in this manuscript could contribute to improving the safety of ED-related online communication.