A Comparative Study of Smoking Cessation Programs on Web Forum and Facebook

摘要

Without time and geographical limitations, online smoking cessation programs attract a lot of users to help them quit smoking. This study compares two online smoking cessation support groups, QuitNet Forum and QuitNet Facebook, to evaluate the influence of software features that affect communication. We collect data from posts and comments of these two communities respectively, and compare user behavior from aspects of response immediacy and social network analysis. The associations between user behavior and quit stages were investigated. It is found that users of QuitNet Forum participate in communications more actively than users of QuitNet Facebook. The user behavior of QuitNet Facebook has a wider spectrum than that of QuitNet Forum.