Immigrant families' health-related information behavior on instant messaging platforms: Health-related information exchange in immigrant family groups on instant messaging platforms

Author

Lev PORETSKI, University of Haifa
Taamannae TAABASSUM, University of Toronto
Anthony TANG, Singapore Management UniversityFollow

Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

5-2021

Abstract

For immigrant families, instant messaging family groups are a common platform for sharing and discussing health-related information. Immigrants often maintain contact with their family abroad and trust information in shared IM family groups more than the information from local authorities and sources. In this study, we aimed to understand health-related information behaviors of immigrant families in their IM family groups. Based on the interviews with 6 participants from immigrant families to Canada, we found that immigrant families’ discourse on IM platforms is motivated by love and care for other family members. The families used local and international sources of information, judged information credibility by its alignment with their pre-existing knowledge, and mostly did not verify information further. The information shared by different users from different sources often contradicted one another. Yet, family members did not discuss the conflicting information due to their desire to avoid tensions.

Keywords

Health-related information exchange, immigrant families, Information behaviors, Instant messaging platforms

Discipline

Health Information Technology | Software Engineering

Research Areas

Information Systems and Management

Publication

CHI '21: Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Yokohama, Japan, May 8-13

First Page

1

Last Page

6

ISBN

9781450380959

Identifier

10.1145/3411763.3451751

Publisher

ACM

City or Country

New York

Citation

PORETSKI, Lev; TAABASSUM, Taamannae; and TANG, Anthony. Immigrant families' health-related information behavior on instant messaging platforms: Health-related information exchange in immigrant family groups on instant messaging platforms. (2021). CHI '21: Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Yokohama, Japan, May 8-13. 1-6.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/7962

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451751