this is for holding javascript data
Rannie Teodoro renamed Pro-Anorexia & Social Media.tex to Pro-Anorexia and Social Media.tex
over 9 years ago
Commit id: 47ce08637d94574fe8d91c569bc7187a3df325a7
deletions | additions
diff --git a/Pro-Anorexia and Social Media.tex b/Pro-Anorexia and Social Media.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a4e116
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Pro-Anorexia and Social Media.tex
...
\subsection{Pro-Anorexia and Social Media}
The pro-ana movement has also spread to social networking sites. For example, Facebook has over 350 different pro-ana groups (Arseniuk, 2007), and MySpace has over 115 million members to several hundred pro-ana groups. Head (2007) found that pro-ana social networking sites are beneficial for pro-ana’s because they can access specific groups not otherwise easily accessible or immediately discoverable. Twitter, considered a “microblog,” based on its 140-characters per post limit, especially lends itself to pro-ana communities because it allows users to find similar others and connect publicly via conventions of a topic-based ‘hashtag’ (e.g., #proana).
Several reasons may explain why the pro-ana movement has moved to social networking sites. One reason may be that social networking sites are more lax regarding security of accessing the sites and the content moderation of the sites when compared to general websites and their hosts; ultimately, making it harder for webhosts to shut down these groups. Another reason may be that groups on social networking sites can implement privacy settings preventing non-members to search or access these groups (Juarascio et al., 2010). Furthermore, there are also communicative and more functional reasons for why social networking sites may appeal to pro-ana’s and their groups.
Individuals with anorexia may have stigma-induced feelings such as embarrassment, depression, and social anxiety. These feelings then may affect these individuals’ ability to form relationships and social networks offline. For example, Orr et al.’s (2009) study found that shyness and social anxiety is positively correlated with increased use of social networking. Individuals sometimes find that the amount of social support they receive online is higher than offline, leading them to spend more time in their online communities (Turner et al., 2001). Because individuals with eating disorders feel as if they have a lack of social support (Tiller et al., 1997), they might seek more online relationships to receive the type of support they desire. However, for these relationships to develop in social networking sites or for pro-ana’s to receive social support, a certain amount of self-disclosure is required.
There have been studies done on the content on social networking sites. For example, Juarascio et al. (2010) conducted a content analysis between Facebook and Myspace. The two themes they found most prevalent on these sites were ‘social support and interaction’ and ‘eating disorder specific content.’ The difference they found between the two groups were that Facebook focused more on eating disorder specific content, whereas Myspace engaged in general social interactions such as discussions of negative thoughts and feelings. Now, studies on pro-ana groups on Twitter are more rare than pro-ana studies on other social media sites. However, there have been some studies evaluating tweets that mention anorexia in relation to media portrayals of celebrities (e.g., Yom-Tov and boyd, 2013). The scarcity in studies on Twitter regarding the pro-anorexia movement calls for studies evaluating the content on this particular social media site. Additionally, since social networking sites are designed to provide a place for individuals to communicate, and weblogs are designed to have individuals provide information, we are interested in investigating the differences in disclosures across these contexts. Therefore, we pose the following research questions
