Men experiencing infertility face unique challenges navigating Traditional Masculinity Ideologies that discourage emotional expression and help-seeking. This study examines how Reddit’s r/maleinfertility community helps overcome these barriers through digital support networks. Using topic modeling (115 topics), network analysis (11 micro-communities), and time-lagged regression on 11,095 posts and 79,503 comments from 8,644 users, we found the community functions as a hybrid space: informal diagnostic hub, therapeutic commons, and governed institution. Medical advice dominates discourse (63.3%), while emotional support (7.4%) and moderation (29.2%) create essential infrastructure. Sustained engagement correlates with actionable guidance and affiliation language, not emotional processing. Network analysis revealed structurally cohesive but topically diverse clusters without echo chamber characteristics. Cross-posters (20% of users) who bridge r/maleinfertility and the gender-mixed r/infertility community serve as navigators and mentors, transferring knowledge between spaces. These findings inform trauma-informed design for stigmatized health communities, highlighting role-aware systems and navigation support.

• We build a contextualized Twitter-based language model to construct poverty metrics. • Twitter discourse predicts village-level poverty. • Less affluent communities focus more on concrete, local development concerns. • Kriging interpolation improves sparse social media data with uncertainty estimates. • We propose a novel data pipeline for poverty assessment which utilizes citizen participation. We present a novel pipeline for poverty assessment using social media and apply it to a dataset of 1.2 million geotagged tweets from Zambia. Leveraging mixed-methods topic modeling with domain-guided feature selection, we develop an interpretable language model that explains more than 60 % of the variation in village-level wealth. Our findings show that the tweets from poorer villages emphasize local, concrete needs, whereas those from wealthier villages focus on abstract development concepts. We also compare imputation methods for data-sparse contexts and find that kriging improves predictive accuracy by 15 % over standard approaches, while providing uncertainty quantification for adaptive sampling. This work demonstrates the viability of social media discourse as a participatory, scalable poverty monitoring tool in regions with limited data.

Many children in foster care experience trauma that is rooted in unstable family relationships. Other members of the foster care system like foster parents and social workers face secondary trauma. Drawing on 10 years of Reddit data, we used a mixed methods approach to analyze how different members of the foster care system find support and similar experiences at the intersection of two Reddit communities - foster care, and abuse. We found that users who cross the boundary between the two communities focus on trauma experiences specific to different roles in foster care. While representing a small number of users, cross-posters contribute heavily to both communities, and, compared to other community members, receive higher scores and more replies. We explore the roles boundary crossing users have both in the online community and in the context of foster care. Finally, we present design, practice, and policy recommendations that would support survivors of trauma find communities more suited to their personal experiences.

As a novel virus, COVID introduced considerable uncertainty into the daily lives of people all over the globe since late 2019. Relying on twenty-three semi-structured interviews with parents whose children contracted COVID, we analyzed how the use of social media moderated parental uncertainty about the symptoms, prognosis, long-term potential health ramifications of infection, vaccination, and other issues. We framed our findings using Mishel's Uncertainty in Illness theory. We propose new components to the theory that account for technological mediation in uncertainty. We also propose design recommendations to help parents cope with health uncertainty using social media.

Recovering from crises, such as hurricanes or wildfires, is a complex process that can take weeks, months, or even decades to overcome. Crises have both acute (immediate) and chronic (long-term) effects on communities. Crisis informatics research often focuses on the immediate response phase of disasters, thereby overlooking the long-term recovery phase, which is critical for understanding the information needs of users undergoing challenges like climate gentrification and housing inequity. We fill this gap by investigating community discourse over eight months following Hurricane Ida in an online neighborhood Facebook group and Town Hall Meetings of a borough in the New York Metropolitan region. Using a mixed methods approach, we examined the use of social media to manage long-term disaster recovery. The findings revealed a significant overlap in topics, underscoring the interconnected nature of online and offline community discourse, and illuminated themes related to the long-term consequences of disasters. We conclude with recommendations aimed at helping designers and government leaders enhance participation across community forums and support recovery in the aftermath of disasters.

Trauma can disrupt one's sense of self and mental well-being, leading survivors to reconstruct their identities in online communities. Drawing from 30 in-depth interviews, we present a sociotechnical process model that illustrates the mechanisms of online identity reconstruction and the pathways to integration. We introduce the concept of fractured identities, reflecting the enduring impact of trauma on one's self-concept. We also conceptualize grief bubbles-algorithmic recommendations that concentrate on the traumatic aspects of users' identities, hindering identity integration. Our findings challenge the assumptions of Goffman's dramaturgy framework and extend Hecht's communication theory of identity, demonstrating how personal-enacted identity gaps manifest within online spaces. We also discuss how trauma-informed online communities can reflect the principles of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, symbolizing a renewed sense of self, before concluding with design recommendations. *Trigger warnings: Intimate partner violence, addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, violence, and incarceration.

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 name or describe 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 transportability in online platforms. Findings challenge prior notions of community engagement and algorithmic filter bubbles, highlighting 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.

This paper explores the creation, management and moderation of women-only online groups as digital safe spaces. We interview eleven founders and moderators of six distinct, closed, women-only Facebook groups that predominantly cater to women in and from the Global South. The study provides insights into the motivations and mechanisms for creating and moderating these safe spaces, the affordances of social networking sites that enable or hinder the creation and moderation of such spaces and finally, and the deep impact moderating such spaces has on the women who manage them. Based on these findings we discuss suggestions for specific technological affordances to enable and support digital safe spaces for marginalized and vulnerable communities.

Parents can be subjected to scrutiny and judgment for their parenting choices. Much of this scrutiny is experienced online, especially around stigmatized topics such as divorce, custody, postpartum depression, and miscarriage. Prior theory suggests that parents might be able to access greater support online when anonymous, but other evidence suggests that anonymity may increase bad behavior. Drawing from ten years of Reddit parenting boards, we show that parents are more likely to discuss potentially stigmatizing topics using anonymous ("throwaway") accounts. We find that, on average, throwaway comments are more likely to receive a response, receive more responses that are longer, and receive responses that have higher karma scores than topically similar comments posted by non-throwaway accounts. We argue that self-identified throwaway accounts provide a crucial environment for supporting parents with stigmatizing experiences. They also provide a shared platform signal (the throwaway account) which enables other Reddit users to access shared experiences and support. We propose that a hybrid combination of identified and anonymous platforms could provide more supportive online experiences for parents and other users.

Denmark is a generous welfare state which provides resources and legal means for fathers to take their parental role seriously and engage with their children. In this paper, we explore the relation between Danish fathers' interaction online and the societal, legal, and economic infrastructures in which they are situated. By focusing on how fathers living in Denmark make use of the Internet and social media sites to facilitate their role as parents, we are able to explore how online engagement is shaped by the different societal 'norms' of parenting. Our research outlines the ways in which societal infrastructures influence how fathers perceive, and subsequently make use of social media in relation to child-caring. We find that fathers discuss their experiences of legal inequities and stereotypical discrimination on social network sites like Facebook. We also study fathers' online reviews of a Danish parenting App, FAR, designed specifically to support fathers. By analyzing social media discussions around fatherhood in Denmark, we found connections to the ways in which the current political climate shapes and influences fatherhood in Denmark, as they reflect the societal infrastructures which situate fathers in contemporary Denmark. Further, we found a strong political interest for collective action to transform the societal infrastructures to support legal equality for child caretaking across genders. This strong political motivation is distinct from existing studies exploring how fatherhood is displayed on social media in other countries such as the USA. On this basis, we argue that research exploring social media use in institutions which are strongly shaped by societal norms, must explicitly consider the role which society takes in shaping such institutions, and include these aspects into the analysis. Our data show that fathers use social media sites as platforms to produce a fatherhood more in line with their lived experience of parenting, and that they advocate for collective political action to strengthen fathers' legal rights.

Voice has become a widespread and commercially viable interaction mechanism with the introduction of voice assistants (VAs), such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana. Despite their prevalence, we do not have a detailed understanding of how these technologies are used in domestic spaces. To understand how people use VAs, we conducted interviews with 19 users, and analyzed the log files of 82 Amazon Alexa devices, totaling 193,665 commands, and 88 Google Home Devices, totaling 65,499 commands. In our analysis, we identified music, search, and IoT usage as the command categories most used by VA users. We explored how VAs are used in the home, investigated the role of VAs as scaffolding for Internet of Things device control, and characterized emergent issues of privacy for VA users. We conclude with implications for the design of VAs and for future research studies of VAs.

Gender equality between mothers and fathers is critical for the social and economic wellbeing of children, mothers, and families. Over the past 50 years, gender roles have begun to converge, with mothers doing more work outside of the home and fathers doing more domestic work. However, popular parenting sites in the U.S. continue to be heavily gendered. We explore parenting roles and identities on the platform Reddit.com which is used by both mothers and fathers. We draw on seven years of data from three major parenting subreddits-Parenting, Mommit, and Daddit-to investigate what topics parents discuss on Reddit and how they vary across parenting subreddits. We find some similarities in topics across the three boards, such as sleep training, as well as differences, such as fathers talking about custody cases and Halloween. We discuss the role of pseudonymity for providing parents with a platform to discuss sensitive parenting topics. We conclude by highlighting the benefits of both gender-inclusive and role-specific parenting boards. This work provides a roadmap for using computational techniques to understand parenting practices online at large scale.

Prior research shows that the social construction of gender evolves in relation to specific economic and social processes. This paper examines how the practice of DIY (do-it-yourself) making has become a productive frame for a collective of fathers in the U.S. to express masculinity, amidst increasingly precarious economics and shifting norms of gender and labor in the home. Drawing from a qualitative interview study with fathers (n=22) and visual analysis of DIY father blogs (n=29), we examine how DIY fatherhood was produced across the material and discursive practices of blogging. This paper contributes an empirical account of a contemporary phenomenon: the construction and performance of DIY practice as a category of fatherhood identity and domestic masculinity. Further, the paper describes how fathers engage in entrepreneurial thinking as a form of domestic male labor.

Increasing numbers of American parents identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Shifting social movements are beginning to achieve greater recognition for LGBT parents and more rights for their families; however, LGBT parents still experience stigma and judgment in a variety of social contexts. We interviewed 28 LGBT parents to investigate how they navigate their online environments in light of these societal shifts. We find that 1) LGBT parents use social media sites to detect disapproval and identify allies within their social networks; 2) LGBT parents become what we call incidental advocates, when everyday social media posts are perceived as advocacy work even when not intended as such; and 3) for LGBT parents, privacy is a complex and collective responsibility, shared with children, partners, and families. We consider the complexities of LGBT parents' online disclosures in the context of shifting social movements and discuss the importance of supporting individual and collective privacy boundaries in these contexts.

The number of stay-at-home dads (SAHDs) in the U.S. has risen dramatically over the past 30 years. Despite gaining social acceptability, SAHDs still experience isolation and judgment in their offline environments. This research explores how SAHDs use the Internet and social media related to their roles as fathers. We conducted interviews with 18 SAHDs about their families, their identities, and their social experiences. We find that they turn to social media to gain social support and overcome isolation they experience offline. However, they engage in strategic self-disclosure on particular platforms to avoid judgment related to being SAHDs. They rely on online platforms to give off both traditionally feminine and masculine impressions'as loving caregivers of their children while simultaneously as do-it-yourself men who make things around the house. Through creating Facebook groups and using anonymous social media sites, SAHDs create multidimensional social networks that allow them to cope better with the role change. We reflect on the evolving roles of SAHDs in society, and put forth an argument for greater support for diverse kinds of parenting online.

While extensive research has investigated the risks of children sharing their personal information online, little work has investigated the implications of parents sharing personal information about their children online. Drawing on 102 interviews with parents in the U.S., we investigate how parents decide what to disclose about their children on social network sites (SNSs). We find that mothers take on the responsibility of sharing content about their children more than fathers do. Fathers are more restrictive about sharing to broad and professional audiences and are concerned about sharing content that could be perceived as sexually suggestive. Both mothers and fathers work to leverage affordances of SNSs to limit oversharing. Building on prior work, we explore parental disclosure management, which describes how parents decide what to share about their children online. We also describe an emerging third shift of work that highlights the additional work parents take on to manage children's identities online. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications for designing SNSs to better support family life online.

Fathers are taking on more childcare and household responsibilities than they used to and many non-profit and government organizations have pushed for changes in policies to support fathers. Despite this effort, little research has explored how fathers go online related to their roles as fathers. Drawing on an interview study with 37 fathers, we find that they use social media to document and archive fatherhood, learn how to be a father, and access social support. They also go online to support diverse family needs, such as single fathers' use of Reddit instead of Facebook, fathers raised by single mothers' search for role models online, and stay-at-home fathers' use of father blogs. However, fathers are constrained by privacy concerns and perceptions of judgment relating to sharing content online about their children. Drawing on theories of fatherhood, we present theoretical and design ideas for designing online spaces to better support fathers and fatherhood. We conclude with a call for a research agenda to support fathers online.

Theories of empowerment explain how people gain personal and political control to take action to improve their lives. However, empowerment theories were developed prior to the Internet and fail to account for the speed and scale that people can find one another online. One domain where empowerment is critical is caring for children with special needs, in which parents are required to navigate a complex maze of services and processes to access care for their child. We conducted 43 interviews with parents of children with special needs to investigate whether using social media sites helps them to perform this caregiving work. Critically, parents are able to do this through almost real-time access to other parents on Facebook. This work introduces the concept of networked empowerment, that describes how parents find other parents, access resources, and explore new ways for promoting health advocacy among caregivers at a local and national level. We conclude with design implications for facilitating faster and better access to information and support for caregivers.

We present narratives around the use of Access Technology (AT) by 176 people with vision impairments in Peru, Jordan, and India. Respondents note changes in their economic and social aspirations following access to AT, but experience multiple forms of exclusion from the public sphere due to persistent negative social attitudes disability. We argue that building theoretical frames that examine the nature of marginality is an important direction for ICTD to better understand ways in which individuals appropriate technologies, and use them to change their social environment they exist in.