We Are Here For Warmth:The Interaction And Social Support Among People With Depression In WeChat Groups

In recent years,depression has increasingly become a common mental health problem and a serious social issue.Not only people with depression endure the pain caused by the disease itself,but they have to also suffer from stigmatization from outside.The patients are labeled with a series of negative personality labels.The kind of social discrimination and moral judgment deprives patients of normal connection with their family members,friends and colleagues,therefore getting patients isolated and helpless.Through virtual ethnography and in-depth interviews,this study focuses on organized WeChat groups of people with depression in order to investigate how the interaction in patients’ WeChat groups is like,and what social support is then provided for patients.In a word,the study attempts to understand the meaning of online community for people with depression.The analytic logic of the overall study is to view social support as a dynamic process,and to explore the demand,mobility and continuity of social support on the basis of grasping the technology and social structure of WeChat groups.The study found that the patients’ WeChat groups has built such space with community access and management mechanism,diverse communication mechanism,and potential identity detection mechanism.The two types of organized WeChat groups of public welfare and corporate nature are roughly similar in structural characteristics.The obvious difference is that the WeChat groups of public welfare nature provides a free place for communication,while the WeChat groups of corporate nature occasionally involves for-profit activities and administrators actively share relevant information to increase the influence of their community and organizations.Depressive patients join online communities to look for cognitive help,mental acceptance,and resistance against social stigma.WeChat groups can be used to support patients because of such characteristics as immediacy,interaction,and similarity among members.As a product of the interactive experience in the online community,social support flows and exchanges in different support types in the horizontal dimension,and continues and develops in the vertical dimension.In the horizontal dimension of support mobility,members not only obtain information exchange,emotional joint,and crisis intervention from the WeChat groups in the conventional situation,but are also encouraged to rebuild their life in the special situation of COVID-19.In conventional situations,the information exchange among members comes from both professionals and patients,altering the power relationship between doctors and patients,and within patients.Learning about illness information from WeChat groups,patients can deal with doctors’ treatment plan more cautiously.The authority within patients will also affect the flow of information.Besides,the emotional joint is based on empathy consisting of understanding,companionship,and care,which fosters members’ sense of b elonging to the communities.What is more,crisis intervention occurs when the signs of suicide or self-mutilation emerge or the danger situation is very serious.Members in the WeChat groups will make immediate and specific responses to give a hand to the patients.In the special situation of COVID-19,life of those with depression has been severely broken.The patients encountered a drug crisis,which exacerbated their anxiety and fear.The support from organizations and individuals in the WeChat groups help establish connection for patients.The organizations hold such activities as drug donation and free clinic.Communication among individuals also provides a certain amount of comfort and guidance,helping patients rebuild life and the meaning of life.In the vertical dimension of support continuity,social support develops like a relay.For one thing,those who acts as support recipients become providers,actively sharing the healing experience and giving more patients guidance and care.Social support thus spread in the overall network through such reciprocity.For another,by participating in offline activities held by organizations,organizing private meetings,sharing objects and so on,the interpersonal relationship between members extends from online to offline.Through the expansion of communication scenes and improvement of member intimacy,social support continuously passes on.