Self-Disclosure of Bullying Experiences and Social Support in Avatar Communication: Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communications

Abstract

Avatar communication through the Internet has great potential to be an appropriate environment for self-disclosure and social support. Anonymity and ease of access drive selfdisclosure of even the most serious problems. Rich nonverbal communication, co-presence, and real-time interaction increase emotional closeness. However, there has not been much research with regard to examining social support in avatar communication. In this paper, we aim to facilitate self-disclosure and social support for bullied people through avatar communication. For this purpose, we analyzed verbal and nonverbal communication about bullying experiences through an avatar communication service. We demonstrate that people who emotionally disclosed their bullying experiences received better social support. In addition, people who provided social support used emotional expressions to convey emotional empathy. These were observed in conversations with a few acquaintances in closed spaces. Our findings reveal areas where we can improve upon the design of avatar communication spaces for effective social support.

Online Social Support via Avatar Communication Buffers Harmful Effects of Offline Bullying Victimization

“…Online social support can complement offline social support (Trepte et al 2015;Cole et al 2017). Particularly, this is effective for people who lack social resources (Mesch and Talmud 2006;Chung 2013;Yokotani and Takano 2021a;Pierce et al 2020), including bullying victims (Cole et al 2017;Takano and Tsunoda 2019). One reason is anonymity.…”

“…One reason is anonymity. While not all social platforms have anonymity as the default feature (e.g., Facebook), previous studies showed that those that do promotes self-disclosure of negative experiences (Kang et al 2016) (e.g., sexual abuse (Andalibi et al 2016) and bullying victimization (Cole et al 2017;Takano and Tsunoda 2019)), which are difficult in offline relationships because of the fear of rejection by listeners (Mesch and Talmud 2006;Andalibi et al 2016).…”

“…For example, close relationships provide rich social support (Westmyer and Myers 2006;Kendrick et al 2012), and many relationships offer opportunities to receive social support. The same is true for online support (Takano and Tsunoda 2019). Herein, we investigated online social relationships facilitating online social support.…”

“…Online social support also improves mental health (Trepte et al 2015;Cole et al 2017), particularly for people who lack social resources (Mesch and Talmud 2006;Chung 2013;Yokotani and Takano 2021a;Pierce et al 2020), including bullying victims (Cole et al 2017;Takano and Tsunoda 2019). We can expect to complement offline social resources with online social support because online communication has some features that offline communication does not, e.g., anonymity.…”

“…Behavioral restrictions due to COVID-19 is a serious problem for bullying victims because the harmful effects of bullying victimization on mental health, which is one of the causes of suicide in school children and adolescents (Matsubayashi et al 2016), can be mitigated by social support (Rothon et al 2011;Takano and Tsunoda 2019). On the other hand, such behavioral restrictions mean bullying victims can easily avoid the perpetrators and stressors.…”