Online disclosure of illicit information: Information behaviors in two drug forums

Abstract

Although people disclose illicit activities such as drug use online, we currently know little about what information people choose to disclose and share or whether there are differences in behavior depending on the illicit activity being disclosed. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines how people discuss and disclose the use of two different drugs-marijuana and heroin-in the popular online forum Reddit. In this study hermeneutic content analysis is employed in order to describe the type of comments people make in forums dedicated to discussions about illicit drugs. With inductive analysis, seven categories of comments were identified: disclosure, instruction and advice, culture, community norms, moralizing, legality, and banter. Our subsequent quantitative analysis indicates that although the amounts of disclosure are similar in each subreddit, there are more instances of instruction and advice in discussions about opiates, and more examples of banter in comments about marijuana use. In fact, both subreddits have high rates of banter. We argue that banter fosters disclosure in both subreddits, and that banter and disclosure are linked with information seeking behaviors in online forums. This work has implications for future explorations of disclosure online and for public health interventions aimed at disseminating credible information about drug use to atrisk individuals.

Predicting Age Groups of Reddit Users Based on Posting Behavior and Metadata: Classification Model Development and Validation (Preprint)

“…This combination of longer post length and an engaged user base encourages active and nuanced discussions across a myriad of topics relevant to the public health community. In recent years, researchers have used Reddit data to understand emerging public health issues, including cannabis [8][9][10], opioid [11,12], and alcohol [13,14] use.…”

Analysis of a Vaping-Associated Lung Injury Outbreak through Participatory Surveillance and Archival Internet Data

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Designing sustainable online support: Examining the effects of design change in 49 online health support communities

“…Roughly 150 million U.S. citizens have one or more chronic diseases and over half of these individuals have sought support for their disease on the Internet (Fox & Purcell, ). Online participation often begins when individuals navigate to an online health community (OHC) in search of information, but typically evolves to encompass the exchange of social support (Costello, Martin, & Edwards Brinegar, ). Social support is a multidimensional construct comprising several different kinds of aid, regard, or assistance that peers provide to one another via social networks (Fox & Purcell, ).…”