社群媒體互動的精神慰藉作用

Mental Comforting in Social Media Interaction

伴隨網路通信與智慧手機的普及，社群媒體已成為人們的重要溝通管道。近年來社群媒體在滿足心理需求與撫慰精神障礙患者的功能受到關注，社群媒體被認為是人們緩和壓力、獲取認同的重要平台，甚至可以作為偵測精神障礙的訊息來源。回應上述趨勢，本文採社會網絡分析途徑，觀察社群媒體互動與精神慰藉間的關聯，並探究社會資本在其中所扮演的角色，以深化相關理解，供未來照護與治療的參考。本研究以台灣傳播調查資料庫調查數據，建立指數隨機圖模型，評估不同心理與精神表徵者在社群媒體與非社群媒體互動之間的差異，瞭解社會資本在其中所發揮的作用與限制。分析結果發現，尋求心理支持與參與社群媒體互動的關聯明確，且優於非社群媒體介面的互動，社群媒體互動也吸引負面身心狀態的使用者，其提升的社會資本確實能發揮精神慰藉作用，但是有憂鬱傾向者更常借重非社群媒體互動。社群媒體的精神慰藉功能雖值得期待，卻不能因此忽略它的限制所在，應持續改善憂鬱患者的「面對面」支持系統。

With the prevalence of internet-based communication and smart phones, social media become vital platforms for social interaction. It is now recognized that social media in terms of their capacity in building social capital are important sources of support and comfort to those who suffer from negative emotion, psychological disorder, and mental illness. Recently, social media have been further found to be a suitable platform for detecting mental illness at its early stage. In reposed to these trends, the paper aims to examine the association between social media and mental comforting, as well as the role of social capital, with a view to contributing the current understanding of mental health issues in association with social media interaction. Based on the data from Taiwan Communication Survey, the study applies social network analysis and exponential random graph model (ERGM) to identify the differences between interactions on and off social media mediated by social capital when participants possess different psychological status or mental symptoms. The results suggest a close association between psychological satisfaction and social media interaction which constitutes a better performance in building social capital to offer mental comforting compared to off-social-media contacts. This study also found that while social media interaction is able to accommodate the users with negative mental symptoms, people with depression are particularly resort to the off-social-media interaction. It concluded that although the mental comforting function of social media interaction, by means of social capital, is promising, this should not lead to overlook the limitations of social media in mental comforting. The continuous improvement of face-to-face support system for people suffering from depression is still needed.