On 3 October 2022 (7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. EDT), as part of the ASIS&T2022 Conference, Dominique Kelly and the rest of the LiT.RL team will present one of the latest works on “Supporting Prosocial Behaviour in Online Communities through Social Media Affordances” [part of the Western-funded “Rewiring for Happiness” (2021-22) Project].

Hope you can join us, virtually! And, yes, it’s schedule very early in the morning to better accommodate time differences across the globe. It is an international conference!

KEYWORDS
Anonymity; Affordances; Social Media Design; Human-Computer Interaction; Prosocial Behaviour

ABSTRACT
Affordances are action possibilities that emerge from the relationship between the properties of an object and an interacting agent’s capabilities. This poster examines how one type of affordance—anonymity—is enabled or constrained by six features of social media platforms. Our work is one step in a broader agenda to: (1) identify affordances that influence users’ behaviour in online communities; (2) outline the social media features that enable or constrain those affordances; and, (3) experimentally determine whether certain affordances, or combinations of affordances, support prosocial behaviour. Prosocial behaviour in information and communication technologies (ICTs) is broadly viewed here as benefiting other individuals in online communities, which in turn could increase the subjective well-being (SWB) of the community’s members. SWB is characterized by high positive affect, low negative affect, and high life satisfaction. A more Extended Abstract is here.

Suggested Citation:

Kelly, D., Liu, Y., Mayhew, A., Chen, Y., Cornwell, S. E., Delellis, N. S., & Rubin, V. L. (2022). Supporting Prosocial Behaviour in Online Communities through Social Media Affordances. The 85th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T2022): “Crisis, Transition, Resilience: Re–Imagining an Information–Resilient Society,” October 29 – November 1, 2022, Pittsburgh, PA. October 29 – November 1, 2022, Pittsburgh, PA.