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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies

BACHELOR'S PROJECT

Field of study: 39.03.01 Sociology

Degree programme: Sociology and Social Informatics

Personal blogging in social network as coping strategy of difficult experiences for youth: the case of teenagers support community in VK

Ustinova Polina Dmitrievna

Supervisor:Candidate of Science in Sociology,

Associate Professor, A.V. Nemirovskaya

Saint Petersburg 2020

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Theoretical approaches to study coping strategies
• 1.1 Difficult experiences for teenagers and coping strategies
• 1.2 The practice of personal blogging
• 1.3 The practice of participation in online community
• Chapter 2. Empirical study of practice of personal blogging in online support community
• 2.1 Methodology and empirical base of research
• 2.1.1 Sampling and methods of data gathering
• 2.1.2 Methods of analysis
• 2.2 Empirical Data Analysis
• 2.2.1 Quantitative Content Analysis
• 2.2.2 Qualitative Content Analysis
• 2.2.3 Interview analysis
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix


Introduction

Over the past ten years, social networks have been developing at a high speed, starting with the basic need for fast communication between people, now the possibilities of social networks cover almost all areas of social life. In most cases, such modification became possible due to the fact that social networks became a platform that has the ability for many online communities to cover various topics and have different goals. These may be communities that unite people with common interests regarding books, films, video games, or providing some kind of services, such as promotional product sales. The main factor that unites all these communities is the general interest of the audience in the main community goal.

This research work is devoted to study the practice of participation in an online support community for young people by using personal blogging as a way to overcome difficulties. Online support communities are a contemporary tool to cope with difficult experiences since more and more people prefer to express their problems on the Internet. Thus, online peer-to-peer support is a new form of social interaction of people which contributes to the restoration of self-esteem, mental and physical well-being (Ziebland & Wyke, 2012). The corresponding connection is possible due to the fact that an individual identifies himself as part of a social group, which subsequently helps to increase his/her self-esteem (McKenna & Bargh, 1998).

The object of this study is young people participating in the special VK group as members. The subject is the practice of participation in appropriate VK online communities for teenagers using personal blogging. This paper will define the term of personal blogging as “the following online diary or commentary written by an individual not related to monetization” (Princeton's WordNet database). The main research question of this work is could the practice of personal blogging in special online communities created for young people affected by different issues be a coping strategy. Thus, the main goal of this study is to investigate adolescent practices of personal blogging in special online communities as a coping strategy.

To answer this question, we analyzed scientific literature regarding the interaction of people in such communities, difficult experiences for adolescents, how it could be measure and study, also different coping strategies. Additionally, studying such literature helped identify possible research limitations, which later formed the basis of this study methodology. The research question in this paper consists of several elements that are determined by the practice of personal blogging and the practice of participation in the online community. In this regard, in addition to studying the literature on online peer-to-peer support, the works that are devoted to the practice of personal blogging were also studied. The main motivating elements that contribute to the individual resorting to such practices were examined, and the main patterns of such practices influence the individual were identified.

To achieve the goal and answer the research question, the following tasks are set:

1. Analyze research literature for the operationalization of basic concepts.

2. Based on research literature, identify possible work limitations.

3. Relying on research literature to construct a research methodology.

4. Study and structure the field of problematic topics about which adolescents write in their personal blogs.

5. Study different coping strategies about which adolescents write in their personal blogs.

6. Find distinctive and unifying patterns in the results that were obtained with different types of analysis.

7. Examine whether blogging practices in online communities are a coping strategy for difficult experiences for adolescents.

This research work is devoted to communities that unite the audience of adolescents who want to share their personal information. Such communities provide a platform that includes two functions: communication and support search (Yan et al., 2016). The study will include both a passive analysis of community content and online interviews with participants, which requires prior informed consent.

Chapter 1. Theoretical approaches to study coping strategies

1.1 Difficult experiences for teenagers and coping strategies

There are a large number of different factors that affect the mental health of a person and in general their well-being. According to the study, the breakdown of a relationship with a friend, the death of a close friend, the divorce of parents, illness of a family member, a problem with a teacher is important factors that can develop depression in a teenager (Waaktaar et al., 2004). Such events may have short-term or long-term effects on adolescent's behavior and well-being (Kessler, 1997). The ability of textual and visual analysis allows passively studying microblogging without direct interaction with the authors. Studies based on the use of teen tweets allowed researchers to break down all stress factors into four main groups: education, affection, interpersonal relationship, and self-cognition. Similar difficulties may exceed teenager resources and lead to stress, accompanied by a decrease in psychological and physical well-being (Xue et al., 2014). Studies of coping with difficulties are directly related to the importance of maintaining psychological well-being in people experiencing difficult life events.

Adolescents obtain coping mechanism from at least four different sources: personal experience, an experience which associated with the success or failure of other people, reception of their own conclusions which they made already due to own vulnerability and social persuasion (Patterson & McCubbin, 1987). Coping strategy or coping mechanism is defined as the adoption of efforts to eliminate or reduce stress factors (Matheny et al., 1986). The first classification includes two coping strategies: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The first type is aimed at working with the cause of the problem, in order to eliminate it, for example, turning to the search for information that helps to solve the problem. The second type is aimed at regulating emotions that are directly caused by the problem as seeking social support. The last classification, which was determined by researchers, distinguishes three broad types of coping strategies: problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and adaptive cognitive strategies (Weiten, 2009). This classification has an additional strategy, which is aimed at changing the attitude to the situation, for example, its denial or change of goals and values.

Problem-focused copings are more effective in controlled situations, and emotion-focused coping - in uncontrollable ones. In uncontrolled situations, it is important to use an emotion-focused strategy such as adoption. Difficulties that were noted earlier are controlled and uncontrolled; therefore, it can be assumed that the strategy will be relevant for a wide audience of adolescents.

In the 1970s The Ways of Coping Checklist was developed, which consists of 68 statements and suggests answers: yes or no (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980). This methodology includes two types of data gathering: survey and interview. It depends on the goal: measure the influence of coping strategy or to understand different coping strategies that people use in different situations. This methodology consisted of two scales, based on two types of strategies. During the time the scales were transformed and the measurement began to be carried out on four scales. “Ways of Coping Questionnaire” consists of 66 points to measure the process of coping strategies in specific circumstances (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). Moreover, the COPE techniques allow diagnosing coping strategies; this questionnaire consists of 60 items, which are combined into 15 scales, each of which represents a specific strategy (Carver, 1997). It should be assumed that the use of a qualitative methodology in this study will reveal adolescent's desire to receive advice, help, and information, the desire to find emotional, moral support, empathy, and understanding. In cases of such aspirations, using the practice of personal blogging in an online support community can be assessed as a coping strategy of difficult experiences.

1.2 The practice of personal blogging

As mentioned earlier, the main focus of this study is the practice of participating in online communities by using personal blogging as a coping strategy of difficult experience for teenagers. In the beginning it is worth considering various research works that are devoted to the ways the practice of writing and keeping personal diaries affect health outcomes. Many research papers studying various practices for dealing with emotional injuries suggest that writing practice is an effective way to release the negative effects associated with trauma that allows a person to return to physical and psychological well-being in the process (Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005).

According to a meta-analysis based on nine research papers, the practice of writing improves mental health outcomes of people with depression and similar disorders (Frisina et al., 2004). Researchers also concluded that a similar result occurs only for people who suffer such disorders in a mild form, as the results showed that such practice is not successful for people with severe forms of depression.

With the development of social networks, the practice of personal blogging has also been modified and became popular in online space. To analyze the audience that is characterized by this practice we are addressing the researches devoted to age and gender studies. Based on the results of qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 50 MySpace blogs, the audience was divided into three age subgroups, came to the following conclusions (Fullwood et al., 2009):

- There is no significant sex difference throughout the blogs, but researchers concluded that there are significant age differences in almost all aspects of blogging.

- This phenomenon occurred because the teenage group of ages 18 to 29, more than other groups, required feedback about themselves and according to the authors, this was caused by a lack of confidence in their own self-presentation.

The detailed study of this practice, it was concluded that women are more interested in self-expression using blogging than men (Li, 2005). Literature analysis showed that the practice of blogging is more typical for people characterized by different kinds of social difficulties. The main result of such studies shows that people are more motivated to use the Internet as a tool for communication with others (Amichai-Hamburger, 2012; Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). Also, blogging serves as an instrument for emotional self-expression especially for people having difficulties expressing themselves to others in a face-to-face conversation. The practice of blogging also provides teens with a safe area with the possibility of anonymity for the authors, which contributes to a favorable environment, allowing the exchange of opinions and the establishment of relationships. Thus, blogging contributes to the acquisition of social skills through interpersonal communication (Miura, A., & Yamashita, K,2004; Caplan & Turner, 2007; Rains, 2014).

Study the practice of blogging as a mechanism for coping with distress also came to similar conclusions. The authors compared two groups of informants using a self-report survey; the comparative variable between the two groups was the presence or absence of the practice of introducing a blog. According to the results of the analysis, researchers came to the following results: informants who belong to the group of bloggers have fewer points in terms of social indicators, which were caused by the lack of doubling in the number of social connections compared with informants who are not characterized by blogging practice. In this connection, informants resort to the practice of blogging, which, according to the results of this study, allows them to increase the number of social connections and improve existing social-support structures. This phenomenon is the result of the possibility of a dialogue between the blog author and its readers, so reader reviews serve as means to provide social support to the author of the blog through social approval (Baker & Moore, 2008). Thus, the analysis of scientific research regarding blogging revealed three main factors motivating people to do this: self-expression (Lenhart, 2006), networking (Kawaura & Kawakami,1999), and identity management (Huffaker & Calvert, 2006).

It is worth considering how the practice of blogging affects social behavior and the level of the emotional stress of a teenager. In the article “The Therapeutic Value of Adolescents' Blogging About Social-Emotional Difficulties”, researchers conducted a three-stage survey of informants, which consisted of several blocks using different scales (Boniel-Nissim & Barak, 2013). Various scales and indexes were used to study the following variables: self-esteem of informants, level of participants' socio-emotional distress, level of social behaviors that participants engaged in, and socio-emotional condition through reading their blog posts. This study involved different groups of adolescents, some of whom had no blogging experience. Using statistical methods such as MANOVA and ANOVA, the following results were concluded: blogs focused on socio-emotional difficulties, regardless of whether they are publicly available or not, positively affect changes in the well-being of a teenager. Additionally, the level of distress for teenagers who started blogging decreased significantly compared to the group of teenagers which kept a personal offline diary. Moreover, the study showed that this practice has a uniform effect on female and male participants. In this regard relatively to this study, when analyzing the conduct of high-qualitative content analysis and interviews, the gender parameter will not be a comparative variable, while the practice of using offline diaries should be taken into account since according to this study, the use of various types of online or offline diaries has an effect on well-being in different degrees.

The article “Coping through blogging: A review of studies on the potential benefits of weblogs for stress reduction” is devoted to the results of meta-analysis, which was carried out on the basis of 17 scientific articles on the study of blogging as a coping strategy (Petko et al., 2015). The selected articles were divided into three main blocks depending on the purpose and type of blogs being studied: self-initiated general-purpose blogging, self-initiated problem-specific blogging, and mandated problem-specific blogging. After analyzing each article and in general each block, the following conclusions were found: the practice of blogging positively affects the emotional health of the author by the possibility of self-expression. In addition, the ability to exchange information and receive social support allows the blog author to feel understood and supported by others; most of the analyzed blogs are open but anonymous.

Authors of this article also analyzed general patterns in the methodology of each study: most studies rely on a qualitative and interpretive methodology; some studies are based solely on the results of a content analysis of the blogs themselves, which does not fully determine the impact which blogging has on the author's well-being. In this regard, this research work, in addition to high-qualitative content analysis, will contain interviews with adolescents, which will determine the direct and indirect impacts of blogging practices on young adults. At the same time, the popularity of anonymous blogs may present difficulties in finding informants for the interviews (Petko et al., 2015).

The research papers perceive the blogosphere as an online support community that provides the opportunity for interpersonal communication through commentary tools. There are two types of comments which express social support online: emotion-oriented empathetic comments or problem-oriented comments (Caplan & Turner, 2007). The first type of comment expresses solidarity, understanding, or encouragement to the author, the second type of comment is devoted to alternative explanations or provides possible solutions. All these articles were devoted to considering each individual blog as an online support community. In this work, communities that combine several personal blogs into one will be examined. Thus, these teenage communities are an online space under the direct purpose to exchange personal stories, the objective of which is peer-to-peer support.

1.3 The practice of participation in online community

Online communities are presented in a large assortment on various social networks or in a form of forums, which, in turn, are divided by interests subsequently structuring the audience. This part focuses on a review of research papers that cover the topic of an online support community.

Since a significant number of works on this topic are devoted to the study of positive and negative aspects of the practice of participating in such communities, as for the positive aspects, the authors distinguish the following characteristics: a large audience gross area, which is facilitated by the lack of barriers regarding time and space, the ability to access various information and the possibility of establishing weak ties with different types of experts, the possibility of anonymous participation, which allows participants in such communities to feel less vulnerable whispers are completely frank (Christopherson, 2007). In addition, online communities, compared to similar offline communities, have the advantage of invisibility, which also contributes to the affinity of anonymity (Suler, 2004). Also, online communities do not force participants to engage in ongoing activities, the ability of participants to freely enter or leave the community gives freedom to its members. As for the negative characteristics, it is worth mentioning that such communities are not always supervised by professional experts, thus, assistance is not professional, which consequently has a detrimental effect on some users in such communities (Pfeil & Zaphiris, 2009).

There are other motivating elements that encourage the individual to resort to this practice, for example, the desire to obtain necessary information about a person's experience or ways to overcome a difficult life event. An individual desire to receive already verified information on the experience of other participants in this community in order to avoid undesirable consequences (Bakardjieva, 2003).

The practice of participating in such communities has a direct impact on reducing feelings of loneliness, especially for those participants who feel isolated from their social environment for some reason. Affiliation with such a group in this case provides them with a social affinity (Wright et al., 2003). In addition, this practice helps an individual make better individual decisions regarding his problem in the future after analyzing all the information received during the discussion; the process of rethinking the situation during interaction with other participants contributes to skill development for choosing an optimal solution (Seale, 2005).

Among studies of online and offline social support communities, the type of support is of constant interest. Literature review in this area shows that there are various classifications of social support. Thus, there is a classification of social support that includes the following components: emotional, material, and informational support (Schaefer et al., 1981). There is also a classification that is divided into five types of social support: esteem, informational support, emotional support, social network support, and tangible assistance (Cutrona & Russell, 1990). In this work, social support will mean emotional and informational support from members of online communities, which is provided by means of posts commenting.

It is important to mention that a large number of studies regarding participation in online communities were carried out on the basis of various groups that united the audience of people with various diseases, such as cancer or diabetes(van Dam et al., 2005). The main result of such studies found that such practice has beneficial effects on the mental well-being of participants. Researchers came to similar results due to the fact that participants discussing their problems changed their attitude towards the current situation, which also influenced a more meaningful behavior in the future.

According to online communities, the ethics of research is the main issue as it is difficult to study a space that is considered both private and public. Subsequently, after analyzing a number of works, it was concluded that there are three types of research on such communities (Eysenbach & Till, 2001). The first type of research is a passive analysis, which allows studying the content of open communities or interactions of its participants in discussion groups without the participation of the researchers themselves. This type of research does not imply potential harm to community members since in most cases participation is anonymous. A similar type of study was used in the analysis of various assistance mechanisms. The second type is active analysis, in which researchers participate directly in communication with participants in this community. The third type of research is conducting online semi-structured interviews or online surveys. This type of research requires informants, as well as maintaining confidentiality.

Chapter 2. Empirical study of practice of personal blogging in online support community

2.1 Methodology and empirical base of research

To study the practice of personal blogging in the online support community as a way to overcome difficulties among young adults, a mixed-methods approach was used. Such research strategy not only allowed a phased study of this topic, but also each of the stages of analysis contributed to a detailed disclosure of this problem and provided an opportunity to see the whole situation regarding this topic, using different methods helped to achieve each of the tasks set in this study. Thus, the following data analysis methods were used in this study: quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis, and online interviews.

2.1.1 Sampling and methods of data gathering

The first stage of data collection was the formation of a sample of posts for quantitative content analysis. The sample was formed based on online community posts in VK, for which it was necessary to identify relevant communities. Using the advanced search, the following indicators were set: keywords (adolescents, help, problems), type of community (only open communities were selected), as well as the relevance of the group. The relevance of the group was evaluated by the date of the last post, the groups whose last post was published no earlier than 2017, were added to the sample. Thus, five online communities were included in this sample: Teenage problems (vk.com/teens.problems), Teenage problems. © (vk.com/podrostkiiproblemu909), Teens help: help for teenagers. Tyzh psychologist (vk.com/teens_help), Anonymous Help for Teens (vk.com/problemsteens), Help for children and teens online (vk.com/pomogaionlain). Below is the summary of statistics for these communities. According to this table, two groups are functioning at the moment, only in one group posts are published on behalf of adolescents without anonymity. The total number of published materials in these communities is 6,922 (posts and comments); after the posts typical for personal blogging were selected, the number of posts for quantitative content analysis began to equal out.

Figure 1 Descriptive data of online communities, which include the following variables: group description, total number of entries, number of entries on behalf of the group, date of first entry, date of last entry, total number of community members

The second stage of data collection was the formation of a sample of posts for in-depth content analysis (Mayring, 2004). To achieve this, all group posts were filtered by popularity, which in this case was estimated by the number of likes, reposts, views, as well as by the number of comments. These indicators were chosen on the basis that the issues raised by the author in his blog were relevant to this audience. Further, based on the fact that the smallest number of posts in one of the groups was equal to 41 posts, this number was selected in the remaining groups, after which the total number of posts was 205. After a detailed study, it was revealed that adolescents publish their blogs simultaneously in several online communities, which resulted in a reduction of the number of posts to 125 personal belongings.

The third phase of data collection was an online interview. As mentioned earlier, only one community published posts on behalf of teenagers themselves, so there were only 41 possible respondents to conduct interviews with. After a detailed study of the personal page, it was revealed that only 17 pages were functional at the moment.

For this work, there were 10 in-depth interviews with group members whose posts were published in the group, as well as 2 pilot interviews. This method involves the “free” course of the interview, which allows learning about the subjective experience and experiences of informants and makes it possible to learn more about individual topics. This type of interview allows asking clarifying questions and receiving additional information. During the interview, informants were asked a series of questions to identify the reasons that contributed them to turn to this practice, as well as questions about how this practice affected their well-being. The main focus of the interview is to identify the practice of using personal blogging in support of communities as a coping strategy of difficult experiences. All interviews were conducted in an online form using Skype or a video call to VK, by prior arrangement with informants. Two pilot interviews were not used for further analysis. Their goal was to improve the guide by finding errors, as well as including or eliminating some issues. The interview guide includes four thematic blocks divided into supposed questions for the informant. The average duration of each interview was on average 40 minutes, after which all interviews were transcribed.

Figure 1.1: Descriptive data of informants.

2.1.2 Methods of analysis

The first stage of the analysis is quantitative content analysis, which allows determining the dominant types of text units (Neuendorf, 2016). This method also allows identifying the main topics of personal blogging and determining the structural and meaningful relationships between these topics, as well as the logic of their location in the text using the concentration of a certain unit. For quantitative analysis, all information from the five groups was divided into two databases. The first database consists of 3,286 posts of teenagers, and the second consisted of more than 3,500 comments on these posts. The analysis was done using R Studio and Text Mining methods. The used algorithms helped to identify the related context of communities. Thus, word clouds, as well as N-grams were used for the analysis.

A word cloud is a visualization of words that are combined in texts. Word sizes make it possible to determine the frequency. These methods produce a summary of a large number of posts and comments. Usage of bigrams and trigrams helps to identify the semantic topics of posts more accurately. The results of this analysis will serve as a brief analytical description regarding personal blogging in online support groups in VK.

The second stage of the analysis is a high-qualitative content analysis, which allows us to consider the content of teenage blogs more thoroughly to identify various patterns regarding the use of such practices more closely as well as consider and explore the topics of these blogs. This will also help to identify various characteristics of adolescents who use such practice of blogging. Under the unit of analysis, the main context of the blog will be used, when using structured observation, the direction of the post itself will be measured, the analysis itself will be carried out using latent coding.

Interview analysis was done using thematic coding with the QDA Miner Lite program. This program allows coding the interview and gives a brief statistical reference, thus integrating a qualitative and quantitative analysis method.

2.2 Empirical Data Analysis

This chapter comprises of four parts. Three parts are devoted to a detailed description of the analysis results of empirical material; each part is associated with a separate method of analysis of this material. The fourth part is the description of the key results for each part and a debriefing.

2.2.1 Quantitative Content Analysis

Word cloud with a word repeating frequency of at least 20 times made it possible to identify the following problematic topics that teenagers wrote about (Figure 2):

Cluster 1 - Family: mom, momy, mother, parents, at home, home.

Cluster 2 - School: school, classroom, class.

Cluster 3 - Friends: friend, friends.

Cluster 4 - Relations: relationships, feelings, boyfriend, love, boyfriend, date, boyfriend.

Cluster 5 - bad, problems, help, problem, it hurts, I'm afraid.

Cluster 6 - occurs, wants, walks, says, do, wants, live, see, speak, please, need.

Cluster 7 - nobody, recently, one, herself, one

Based on the fact that the size of a word depends on its repetition frequency, these clusters can be distributed in a hierarchical form from the most popular to less. Thus, the family theme is the most popular. The second topic on the popularity of mentions by teens on a blog is relationships with a partner. Then teens write about relationships with friends and after that - about problems at school. This sequence can also be confirmed using word cloud with a repetition rate of at least 30 (Figure 3). It is also worth paying attention to the seventh cluster, from which we can conclude that the topic of loneliness is also one of the main problem areas.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Additionally, the bigram and trigram clusters were divided into the following categories and visualized using the word cloud (Appendix 1): age, type of appeal, problematic topics, attitude to the problem. The age of the adolescent is specified by indicating the age and the school grade (Figure 4). The type of appeal is specified by anonymity or its absence (Figure 5), as well as a description of the appeal to support group (Figure 6, Figure 6.1): a request for help, a request for advice, etc. The problematic topic is similar to the results that were obtained earlier: school, partnerships, friendship, and family (Figure 7, Figure 7.1). A new category also appeared namely the adolescent's attitude to the problem of the characteristic of his well-being (Figure 8, Figure 8.1): I'm tired, I'm afraid, I'm scared, etc.

Building a word cloud (Figure 9, Figure 9.1) by one word allowed to review the contextual meaning of the comments only in general and did not allow determining their main idea more accurately. All comments are aimed at the desire to help the teenager to find a solution to the problem based only on the actions and desires of the teenager himself that is why the word “you” is clearly distinguished in the center of both word clouds.

Figure 4

Figure 5

The analysis of bigrams and trigrams (Figure 10, Figure 10.1) made it possible to understand the contextual meaning of comments for adolescents from teenagers, editors of the community as well as the comments of professional psychologists. Thus, the following patterns were identified in the recommendations: part of the n-gram is solutions to the problem, such as tips: “go to a psychologist”, “turn to”. Also, the advice that stands out is that it is worth talking about problem: “first, talk”, “talk to”, as well as providing support: “you can write to me”, “sending me personal messages”. Many comments consist of supporting the teenager and trying to explain to them that they are not alone in this situation, and this happens to everyone: “it's okay,” “that's fine.”

2.2.2 Qualitative Content Analysis

Qualitative content analysis of the posts revealed the following contextual patterns of personal blogs (Figure 11): personal information about the teenager, the problem topics of the current situation, the types of treatment to the group. Moreover, in some posts, the teenagers themselves tried to identify the cause of this problem and described its possible solutions.

Figure 6

Teenagers wrote about their age, place of study, their family, as well as their social capital. In the analysis, this information was divided into the following blocks:

Age and gender: “Girl, 19 years old. / D14, / I am 19 / I am a girl, I am now seventeen / I am 19 / I am 16 years old, / I am D16 years old, / D19 / I am 17 years old / I am 20 years old and I'm kind of not a teenager. / 18, / I'm 19 years old / d17 / D 16 / d18 / I'm 16 / I'm a girl, I'm 17 / I'm 15 years old / I'm 15 years old / Girl, 18 years old / M14. “

Socioeconomic status of teenager's family: “I have been in college for the last year, I have been working since next / I have no parents. I live under the care of an older brother. . There were never enough money / My parents are fairly wealthy people, By the way, I am a good student at school. / I am studying steadily! / Home to Ukraine / We live in abundance, we can afford a lot. / I am finishing ninth grade. I have good grades and I was hoping to go to eleventh grade. “Social capital: “4-5 friends with whom I can talk normally / I have friends and I'm not a gray mouse, on the contrary I'm a famous and popular girl. / There are certain people whom I react adequately when they touch me. There are only 6 of them. / Although I really like people, I am not a sociophobe. / I have a couple of good friends and a close friend. ”

Analysis of these characteristics made it possible to compile brief descriptive information about adolescents who are participants in these communities. These are teenagers of the age group from 12 to 19 years; most of the participants are female. The participants in these communities are representatives of both wealthy and low-income families. The overwhelming majority continue their studies at school after the 9th grade. As for social capital, many adolescents note the absence of problems in socialization and presence of a large number of strong ties with their peers.

As for teenager's assumption about the cause of the problem and ways to solve it, the information that was included in this topic was divided into the following blocks:

Art as a coping strategy: “I found peace of mind in art, I think I will devote my whole life to it, and there is nothing more important to it for me, nothing “human” inspires confidence in me anymore, and therefore I just want to devote myself to my beloved work all without a trace. In many cases, it helps I keep healthy life principles, do not fall to the level of “bedla”/ Of course, many may advise you to start doing something, but I'm doing it anyway and still doesn't help. Sometimes it happens that I can escape from this feeling, but only when I am writing a book”.

Online communication as a coping strategy: “Without online communication, I wouldn't have had any chance to socialize in a new society. / I believe that adolescents will understand adolescents, perhaps our conversations and this group will help them cope with any problem, as often adolescents look for other ways like Suicide, suicide ... ”.

Contacting a second parent for help: “I feel that I need custody and protection that my father could give me. / I want my dad to take me to his apartment on the weekend so that I do not see this horror”.

Other types of coping strategies: “I slept a lot; I sleep because there is nothing in the dream. / When it becomes sad, I go to the nursery to help the animals / I want to go to the school psychologist. / I just want a person who could help me. / I deleted all the photos, threw away all her things, but nothing helped…/”.

The cause of the problem: “By the way, I never had a father, maybe this could be one of the reasons? / “parental divorce” is the main reason of all problems / Maybe this is how long loneliness affected me, but then again, I don't understand this / ”.

Due to this analysis many adolescents have the ability to analyze and reflect. Many adolescents quite clearly formulate the alleged cause of a particular problem, and also describe possible means that help them cope with emotional difficulties. Many teenagers mentioned that a passion of art and the possibility of online communication with peers is a great way to cope with difficulties.

Regarding how teenagers appeal to the community, they can be divided into the following blocks:

Ask about suggestion: “How to deal with these complexes, I'm tired of it already, I don't know what to do, suggest me something ... / suggest me what to do? / Suggest me what to do in this situation? ”

Ask about advice: “Thanks in advance for the advice and for reading this scribble / Help with at least some advice, please / Hello everyone, just don't need to blame me, please, I need some advice, it's very urgent, I hope for your understanding / HELLO, I really need advice ”

Ask about help: “Please help, I don't know what to do with this. / What should I do? Help! Fight for your happiness or retreat? / Help, what to do ?? !! / help !!! / Hello, help what to do? What to do? / Help me please! ”

Others: “Request subscribers, respond all, tell you stories. I am sure that they will help me. Thank you all, chmokis?? / I beg you all, do not blame me, thank you very much, good luck to all the girls, wait no matter what, not listening to anyone, because this is your life and your destiny, I'm waiting for your comments / a question for everyone here than the real problem. / How to get rid of this obsession, I feel very bad /./ I hope for adequate comments. / Hello, I want to tell my unimaginable case ”

Due to analyzing this category it was concluded that most adolescents write in order to share their problem, rather than get help and advice. Many teenagers write that they have a desire to talk about problem; many just want to share their situation and look at the opinions of others regarding a particular situation.

A part of the members of this community asked for help and advice were in most cases accompanied by the following clarifications from adolescents: “Maybe someone had something like that. Or need a psychologist? But I don't have the financial ability to go to him. / I can't turn to a qualified specialist because I'm 16 and I am dependent on my parents, whom I can't say about this problem, so I just hope that there is someone who has come across similar. / Maybe you will advise the book, or where else you can find the answer to this question. Unfortunately, I don't have enough money to go to the doctor, that's why only that way. I will be very grateful!/" . These findings make us conclude that such communities are significant for adolescents from low-income families, as well as the ones who have problematic relationships with parents as they provide the necessary psychological and social form of help.

Based on the results of the qualitative content analysis the problematic topics were also categorized. Thus, the following categories were identified: "Self-destruction”, Family, Partner relationship, Friendship, Education and Others.

The analysis showed that there are three most popular topics that teenagers most often write about: "Self-destruction”, Family, Partner relationship. It is worth considering each of them in more detail (Figure 12). It is also worth noting that during the coding, several codes were assigned to each post, and the maximum number of codes for one post could reach six. After that, the connection between codes was also analyzed, the number of references to each code was considered adjacent to another, which also affected the distribution of subcategories into categories.

Figure 7

We shall consider “Self-destruction” category in more detail as it is the most extensive one and many subcategories that are assigned to it directly connect with other categories. Moreover, the subcategories that fall into this category are more likely to be a consequence. Such complexes and pathologies in the behavior of adolescents are influenced by other problems. Each pathology will be examined in more detail. Using a content analysis, the causal connection between each pathology, which was caused by a variety of social factors, will be found. This category can be divided into the following subcategories by the frequency of usage by teenagers: Desire to change yourself, "Self-isolation", Distrust of people.

“Desire to change yourself” - the subcategory which has a strong connection with the following subcategories: partner jealousy and the end of the relationship. According to the results of the qualitative content analysis, the subcategory “Desire to change yourself” was divided into two groups, the first group includes teenagers, with the desire to physically change: “I, as a fool, began to fit my figure to this “ideal ”. The second group includes teenagers with a desire for self-development: “I want to change, I want to be interesting for people.”

The “Self-isolation” subcategory intersects with the following subcategories: object of ridicule, thinking about suicide, the end of the relationship. Under the influence of these and other factors, adolescents talk about the problems they have with socialization, which worries them: “I can't communicate freely with people, I can't keep up the conversation / I'm not sociable, as soon as I speak with someone, they stop communicating with me. / ”.

The Family category consists of the following subcategory:

Communication with parents: “Parents never listen to me, I can't rely on them / My parents don't understand me, I don't find a common language with them / People, my mother doesn't understand me. / I can't accept my stepfather as a father. / I get hysterical every time I find out that my mother was drinking. / My mother was indifferent to me. ”

Communication with siblings: “I have big problems with my younger sister. / I came to my brother for help but did not receive any support.”

Domestic violence: “Could hit with a palm or fist on the face or back of the head, could beat me with a notebook where I have been completing my homework. I remember she tied me up to a chair with a rope so that I could calmly make my HW in mathematics / as a child, he beat me with a belt, hands and feet, pretty much with anything that came handy. He made me stand on peas, gave slaps, threw things, drove me out of the house without outerwear. / ”

By the total number of connections, this category is most often mentioned by adolescents with the subcategory of loneliness. As for the communication with parents, the results of qualitative content analysis confirm the results of quantitative content analysis. Teenagers most often write about the problematic aspects of their relationship with their mother, namely the lack of trust and attention. Teenagers often mention the topic of constant quarrels of parents, which negatively affects the teenager. The topic of domestic violence is often referred by adolescents in the context of committing violence by the father or stepfather.

The category of Partner relationship consists of many subcategories, of which the following subcategories are distinguished by the frequency of mentioning: the end of the relationship (“I parted ways with her and I cried, I was in the hospital because of a nervous breakdown”), fear of starting a relationship (“I will be dumb that I took this step and for me it is unacceptable”), partner jealousy (“but, because of my jealousy, we had a big argument”).

Even though girls are the main audience of such communities, the number of posts in other categories is almost evenly distributed between girls and guys. Based on the results of qualitative content analysis, we can conclude that this category is a problematic topic for girls, the number of posts from guys in this category does not exceed 2% of the total number of posts in this category.

The Other category consists of three subcategories and each of them is often found in posts and is almost evenly distributed across all categories. The envy category is most often used indirectly by adolescents and that phenomenon is clear only from the context of the entire post. The envy for adolescents is aimed at both material and non-material things: “I am enraged that she is happy, but I am not. / After all, looking at what other children have, I was very envious”.