Department of Health Sciences, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3C5.
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3C5, Canada.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Apr;227:119-127. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.022. Epub 2018 Sep 27.
Social media has greatly expanded opportunities to study place and well-being through the availability of human expressions tagged with physical location. Such research often uses social media content to study how specific places in the offline world influence well-being without acknowledging that digital platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Yelp) are designed in unique ways that structure certain types of interactions in online and offline worlds, which can influence place-making and well-being. To expand our understanding of the mechanisms that influence social media expressions about well-being, we describe an ecological framework of person-place interactions that asks, "at what broad levels of interaction with digital platforms and physical environments do effects on well-being manifest?" The person is at the centre of the ecological framework to recognize how people define and organize both digital and physical communities and interactions. The relevance of interactions in physical environments depends on the built and natural characteristics encountered across modes of activity (e.g., domestic, work, study). Here, social interactions are stratified into the meso-social (e.g., local social norms) and micro-social (e.g., personal conversations) levels. The relevance of interactions in digital platforms is contingent on specific hardware and software elements. Social interactions at the meso-social level include platform norms and passive use of social media, such as observing the expressions of others, whereas interactions at the micro-level include more active uses, like direct messaging. Digital platforms are accessed in a physical location, and physical locations are partly experienced through online interactions; therefore, interactions between these environments are also acknowledged. We conclude by discussing the strengths and limitations of applying the framework to studies of place and well-being.
社交媒体通过提供带有地理位置标记的人类表达，极大地扩展了研究地点和幸福感的机会。这种研究通常使用社交媒体内容来研究线下世界中特定地点对幸福感的影响，而没有认识到数字平台（如 Twitter、Facebook、Youtube、Yelp）是以独特的方式设计的，这些方式构建了在线和线下世界中某些类型的互动，从而影响了场所的形成和幸福感。为了扩大我们对影响社交媒体幸福感表达机制的理解，我们描述了一个人与地点相互作用的生态框架，该框架提出了“在与数字平台和物理环境的哪些广泛互动层面上，幸福感的影响会显现出来？” 人处于生态框架的中心，以认识到人们如何定义和组织数字和物理社区以及互动。物理环境中的互动的相关性取决于在各种活动模式中遇到的建筑和自然特征（例如，家庭、工作、学习）。在这里，社会互动分为中观社会（例如，当地社会规范）和微观社会（例如，个人对话）两个层次。数字平台上互动的相关性取决于特定的硬件和软件元素。中观社会层面的社会互动包括平台规范和被动使用社交媒体，例如观察他人的表达，而微观层面的互动则包括更积极的使用，例如直接发送消息。数字平台在物理位置上被访问，而物理位置部分通过在线互动来体验；因此，还承认了这些环境之间的互动。最后，我们讨论了将该框架应用于地点和幸福感研究的优势和局限性。
