Casey Randazzo
Rutgers University, Somerville, New Jersey, United States
Trauma is a common experience affecting over 70 percent of adults globally, with many survivors seeking support from online communities. Yet few studies explore the online experiences of muted groups who lack the words to describe or name their trauma. We pull from 29 in-depth interviews with muted trauma survivors who belong to online communities where trauma narratives are commonplace. Using a spinning top metaphor, we model the sociotechnical nature of the disclosure decision-making process, uncovering new affordances, such as indirect feedback and trans- portability in online platforms. Findings challenge prior notions of community engagement and algorithmic filter bubbles, highlight- ing the potential for algorithmic filters to counteract societal filters for muted groups. We conclude with design recommendations to make online spaces safer for trauma survivors.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581453
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2023.acm.org/)