Learning conversations for people with established bad habits: a study of four health communities
by Asa Smedberg
International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management (IJHTM), Vol. 9, No. 2, 2008

Abstract: During recent years, online communities on the internet have grown in number. One area where these communities have become widely used is the healthcare sector. Besides the online communities for people who suffer from diseases, there are also communities for people who want to get rid of bad habits and learn how to develop a new behaviour. The question is how these communities manage to trigger learning. In this article, a study of the patterns of conversations in four online health-communities on bad habits is presented. The study focused on the usage of counter acts for learning purposes. The communities showed a relatively low frequency of responses that included opposition and counter-ideas. However, most of the time when these occurred, the community members managed to stay neutral or even balance opposition with empathy.

Online publication date: Sun, 02-Mar-2008

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