Posted 4. April 2009, 10:29 by Laura Holmes comments (1)
Category : Home   Academic developments

Is blogging good for your health? Therapeutic blogging for cancer sufferers.

Love them or hate them there are millions of blogs out there with content ranging from tattoos to celebrities and holidays to illnesses. A blog is defined as:

‘a personal webpage consisting of a series of entries or posts presented in reverse chronological order’ (Kumar et al 2004, cited in Hoyt 2008).

Blogs usually focus around a central theme or subject of interest of the blogger. Given the nature of blogging a blogs content can provide both opportunities and threats for both businesses and individuals (Huang et al 2007). The popularity of blogs has snowballed over the last few years, with the earliest blogs dating back to the 1990’s (Dearstyne 2005). Today, there are an estimated ‘1.6 million new blog posts a day’ (Sifry 2007 pg. 1, cited in Huang et al).

The motivations behind a person writing a blog have been widely explored with researchers, however the linkages between blogging and therapeutic values for cancer sufferers has been left relatively untouched (Kim and Chung 2007). This article aims to bring together some of the research that has been done on the subject to give a clear insight into the ‘healing’ powers of the blog.

One study from Nardi et al (2004) established five main motivations behind an individual’s decision to blog one of which was expressing deeply felt emotions. For cancer sufferers expressing their emotions to a stranger can be beneficial as they don’t want to burden their loved ones who may already be worried about them. This is supported by Kim and Chung (2007) who found four reasons which can motivate cancer sufferers to blog including seeking knowledge, expressing opinions, encouraging others and sharing personal experiences and to provide emotional support. This can be therapeutic to the individual with the sense of community and support channels.

Blogging obviously provides an emotional release for those touched by the disease (Cohen 2007) as those involved can blog about their experiences and frustrations with the illness and treatments. Another benefit of blogging is that relevant information is easily available with individuals providing useful links to helpful on support groups. This community effect of blogging also helps the sufferers and their families know that they are not on their own (Hanman 2005).

So are the benefits of blogging more emotional than physical? Or can blogging actually help the authors in a physical sense? According to Wapner (2008) blogging has a ‘placebo effect’ and likened it to complaining. Human beings relate certain behaviour to be ill and complaining about it provides satisfaction. Therefore blogging is used as a placebo for complaining and therefore provides a release for these feeling ultimately culminating in satisfaction. Wapner goes on to outline a study from Flaherty (2004) who found that cancer sufferers who blog before and during their treatment ‘felt markedly better, mentally and physically’ than those who didn’t. Flaherty goes on to state that blogging can trigger a release of dopamine in the brain which provides the body with a feeling similar to looking at art, or listening to music.

On the other hand Barack and Bloch (2006 cited in Hoyt 2008) found that blogging online provided individuals with increased levels of ‘positive emotion’ as the nature of the blogs allowed users to click through to sites where they could get one on one time with professionals.

References:

Cohen., M., 2007., Benefits of blogging. New York. Available from: http://www.kevinmd.com/38fami.pdf. [Accessed 10th March 2009].

Dearstyne, B., 2005., BLOGS- The New Information Revolution?, Information Management Journal. 39(5). Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=12&sid=8d7cc764-24ad-43a8-8ff3-4ed06be05367%40sessionmgr8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=18131950. [Accessed 11th March].

Hanman, N., 2005., Web Therapy. London: The Guardian. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/feb/08/onlinesupplement.health. [Accessed 19th March 2009].

Hoyt, T., 2008., Blogging About Trauma : Linguistic Markers of Apparent Recovery., Electronic Journal of Applied Psychology., 4(2). Available from: http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/viewFile/10/159. [Accessed 12th March 2009].

Huang, C., Yong, S., Hong, L., Shin, C., 2007., Bloggers’ Motivations and Behavious: A Model. Journal of Advertising Research. 47(4). Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=120&sid=8d7cc764-24ad-43a8-8ff3-4ed06be05367%40sessionmgr8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=28028564#db=bth&AN=28028564. [Accessed on 20th February 2009].

Kim, S., Chung, D., 2007., Characteristics of cancer blog users., Journal of Medical Library., 95(4)., Available from: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2000789. [Accessed 11th March 2009]

Nardie, B., Schiano, D., Gumbrecht, M., Swartz, L., 2004., Why We Blog., Communications of the ACM. 47(12). Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=9&hid=115&sid=9d3816eb-cb5b-47ae-a7ba-f6573bc4c03c%40sessionmgr107. [Accessed 14th March 2009].

Wagner, J., 2008., Blogging- It’s good for you. New York: Scientific American. Available from: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-healthy-type&page=2. [Accessed 24th February 2009].