Guest Speaker

Blog: 10/6

In class we had a guest speaker come in and talk about her thesis paper, in the form of a presentation.  This was over blogs she found when researching the community of the online eating disorders. This presentation had the pros and cons of the anorexia community. The community is formed over media with hash-tags, and this is the tracking system users and followers keep track of. The site that the people are connecting on is Tumblr.

One positive aspect of this online community is for sense of belonging, to allow people to have the understanding that they’re not alone in what they’re going through. The users also gain emotional support from each other. The fact that these blogs are highly searchable and pervasive helps within health care providers; meaning this is where healthcare researchers can look deeper and study the minds and behaviors of people with anorexia.

A negative side to this would be is there are no censorship, or filters to keep the online energy in a positive form. This could create a negative light with it forming a user to become depressed. The group cannot always truly connect with one another on a personal level due to the lack of face to face connection. People have the ability to say more unkind comments to one another over a screen, rather in person. Users are able to post pictures, and comment on one another’s but this may not always be good things to say.

Photo 1:https://about.twitter.com/company
Photo 2:http://www.cfaw.com/blog/category/industry-practice-groups/healthcare/
Photo 3:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/anorexia-could-caused-bacterial-infections-7822740