Does Social Support Expressed in Post Titles Elicit Comments in Online Substance Use Recovery Forums?

TL;DR

This study investigates how social support expressed in post titles influences the likelihood of receiving comments in online substance recovery forums, revealing that support types vary across different forums.

Contribution

It analyzes the relationship between social support types in post titles and comment engagement, highlighting forum-specific differences in support expression.

Findings

Support types in post titles affect comment likelihood.

Support expression varies between forums.

Different forums show different support-comment relationships.

Abstract

Individuals recovering from substance use often seek social support (emotional and informational) on online recovery forums, where they can both write and comment on posts, expressing their struggles and successes. A common challenge in these forums is that certain posts (some of which may be support seeking) receive no comments. In this work, we use data from two Reddit substance recovery forums:/r/Leaves and/r/OpiatesRecovery, to determine the relationship between the social supports expressed in the titles of posts and the number of comments they receive. We show that the types of social support expressed in post titles that elicit comments vary from one substance use recovery forum to the other.