Understanding User Experience of Support-Seeking on Reddit During Stressful Times

When individuals experience stressful situations, it is common to disclose personal challenges and stress and seek social support on social media platforms. To better understand and improve social support in online environments, this study uses Reddit as a case study to examine how people navigate support-seeking online during stressful times. We conducted interviews with 16 individuals who used Reddit to share stress and seek support, exploring their motivations and outcomes of their posts and the challenges encountered. Findings reveal that users typically seek emotional, informational, network, and esteem support online and receive the desired support. Beyond immediate support receipt, online support interactions may have sustained positive impacts, such as mindset and social practice changes, the formation of offline friendships, and contributions to personal resilience in navigating stressful events. However, a mismatch between expectations and received responses, along with the inherent barriers of online communities, presents challenges. We discuss Reddit's affordances and limitations for stress disclosure and support exchange within the broader social media ecosystem, and then propose design implications to enhance online support exchange, such as fostering clearer communication, increasing support engagement, and community empathy.