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We examine how Canadians living in the East York section of Toronto exchange social support. Just as we have had to deconstruct social support to understand its component parts, we now deconstruct how different types of communication technologies play socially supportive roles. We draw on 101 in-depth interviews conducted in 2013-2014 to shed light on the support networks of a sample of East York residents and discern the role of communication technologies in the exchange of different types of social support across age groups. Our findings show that not much has changed since the 1960s in terms of the social ties that our sample of East Yorkers have, and the types of support mobilized via social networks: companionship, small and large services, emotional aid, and financial support. What has changed is how communication technologies interweave in complex ways with different types of social ties (partners, siblings, friends, etc.) to mobilize social support. We found that with siblings and extended kin communication technologies could boost the frequency of interaction and help exchange support at a distance. With friendship ties, communication technologies provide a continuous, constant flow of interaction. We draw implications for theories of social support and for social policy linked to interventions aimed at helping vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic., Comment: 36 pages, 2 tables, references

There is a growing literature on teenage and young adult users' attitudes toward and concerns about online privacy, yet little is known about older adults and their unique experiences. As older adults join the digital world in growing numbers, we need to gain a better understanding of how they experience and navigate online privacy. This paper fills this research gap by examining 40 in-depth interviews with older adults (65 and older) living in East York, Toronto. We found Westin's typology to be a useful starting point for understanding privacy attitudes and concerns in this demographic. We expand Westin's typology and distinguish five categories: fundamentalist, intense pragmatist, relaxed pragmatist, marginally concerned, and cynical expert. We find that older adults are not a homogenous group composed of privacy fundamentalists; rather, there is considerable variability in terms of their privacy attitudes, with only 13 per cent being fundamentalists. We also identify a group of cynical experts who believe that online privacy breaches are inevitable. A large majority of older adults are marginally concerned, as they see their online participation as limited and harmless. Older adults were also grouped as either intense or relaxed pragmatists. We find that some privacy concerns are shared by older adults across several categories, the most common being spam, unauthorized access to personal information, and information misuse. We discuss theoretical implications based on the findings for our understanding of privacy in the context of older adults' digital lives and discuss implications for offering training appropriate for enhancing privacy literacy in this age group., Comment: 39 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures

Big data research is currently split on whether and to what extent Twitter can be characterised as an informational or social network. We contribute to this line of inquiry through an investigation of digital humanities scholars' uses and gratifications of Twitter. We conducted a thematic analysis of 25 semistructured interview transcripts to learn about these scholars' professional use of Twitter. Our findings show that Twitter is considered a critical tool for informal communication within DH invisible colleges, functioning at varying levels as both an informational network (learning to 'Twitter' and maintaining awareness) and a social network (imagining audiences and engaging other digital humanists). We find that Twitter follow relationships reflect common academic interests and are closely tied to scholars' preexisting social ties and conference or event co-attendance. The concept of the invisible college continues to be relevant but requires revisiting. The invisible college formed on Twitter is messy, consisting of overlapping social contexts (professional, personal, and public), scholars with different habits of engagement, and both formal and informal ties. Our research illustrates the value of using multiple methods to explore the complex questions arising from big data studies and points toward future research that could implement big data techniques on a small scale, focusing on sub-topics or emerging fields, to expose the nature of scholars' invisible colleges made visible on Twitter., Comment: Quan-Haase, A., Martin, K., & McCay-Peet, L. (2015). Networks of digital humanities scholars: The informational and social uses and gratifications of Twitter. Big Data & Society, January-June, pp. 1-12