How users exchange their opinions and spread social support in social networks

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I am interested in computational social science and social computing. My research goal is to create social media to facilitate social support and empower people to build stronger relationships. In order to inform the design of social media, I am eager to examine how users exchange their opinions and spread social support in social networks during my graduate study. For example, I hope to understand the effect of empathy in online communities. Although offline empathy is known to have positive effect on individuals' mental health state and is therefore widely used in therapies, we are not clear about its impact on users' feelings or interactions in the context of online mental health communities. Therefore, I want to use mix-method to address this research gap. Specifically, I will collect data from typical online mental health communities and conduct causal analysis to examine the effect of online empathy; then I will interview users to better understand how empathy affect them. This study will have theoretical significance and contribution to the big picture of research on empathy. In a broader sense, this study will provide insights into the understanding of online communication in online mental health communities. It will also be helpful for the design of online mental health communities to better support their members.