Social Support and Health in the Digital Age discusses how theinformation age has revolutionized nearly every facet of human communication—from the ways in which people purchase products to how they meet and fall in love. These exciting new communication technologies can both unite and divide us. People who are separated by great distances can now communicate with each other in real time, whereas parents often find themselves competing with smartphones and tablets for their children’s attention. This book explores the many ways that digital communication media, such as online forums, social networking sites, and mobile applications, enhance and constrain social support in health-related contexts. We already know a great deal about how the Internet has altered how people search for health information, but less about how people seek and receive social support in this new age of information, which is critical for maintaining our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.

COOP 2010 is the 9th edition of the International Conference on Designing Cooperative Systems, being the second European conference in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work after ECSCW. The conference brings together researchers who contribute to the analysis and design of cooperative systems and their integration in organizational community, public and other settings, and their implications for policy and decision making. Cooperative systems design requires a deep understanding of collective activities, involving both artifacts and social practices. Contributions are solicited from a wide range of domains contributing to the fields of cooperative systems design and evaluation: CSCW, HCI, Information Systems, Knowledge Engineering, Multi-agents, organizational and management sciences, sociology, psychology, anthropology, ergonomics, linguistics.

How do people fall in love on the Internet? Why is cyberspace such a violent place? This volume answers these and many other questions, focusing on the psychological well-being of Internet users and the commercial benefits of understanding online behaviour.

The well-received first edition of the Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2007, 2 vols) established itself in the academic library market as a landmark reference that presents a thorough overview of this cross-disciplinary field for students, researchers, and professionals in the areas of psychology, business, management, and human resources. Nearly ten years later, SAGE presents a thorough revision that both updates current entries and expands the overall coverage, adding approximately 200 new articles, expanding from two volumes to four. Examining key themes and topics from within this dynamic and expanding field of psychology, this work offers a truly cross-cultural and global perspective.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Online Communities and Social Computing, OCSC 2011, held in Orlando, FL, USA in July 2011 in the framework of the 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2011 with 10 other thematically similar conferences. The 77 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the thematic area of online communities and social computing, addressing the following major topics: on-line communities and intelligent agents in education and research; blogs, Wikis and Twitters; social computing in business and the enterprise; social computing in everyday life; information management in social computing.

Over the past 15 years, internet and phone technologies have introduced new ways to communicate. Substantial research has shown that social support can positively impact psychological well-being. However, few studies have explored the varying impacts of online and offline social support. This study measures how offline and online social support differentially influence psychological well-being. To do this, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) was adapted for both offline and online contexts. To validate these altered scales, the Social Support Questionnaire was administered to see how strongly the measures correlate. To measure well-being, the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being was administered as well. Finally, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale was administered to see if participants presented themselves in an overly positive light. Results confirmed the reliability and validity of both offline and online versions of the MSPSS. Both offline and online social support predicted increased well-being. There were no significant differences in online social support between online game players and those who spent little time playing online games. Those who spent less time playing online games with friends did not have any meaningful difference in offline support compared to those who spent more time playing games. Finally, online support was a slightly better predictor of well-being than offline support.