Online third places: Supporting well-being through identifying and managing unintended consequences
Online service communities are increasingly developed where consumers can interact with each other and service providers can offer support services and enhanced benefits through technology, such as forums and social media. However, these communities are transforming into online “third places” where consumers socialise and form lasting social connections, which is beyond the scope for which online service communities were intended. Therefore, transforming into online third places may have considerable unintended consequences.
In transformative service research (TSR), service managers are challenged to take ownership of both the intended outcomes and unintended consequences for consumers’ well-being. However, unintended consequences have received little research attention in TSR generally. Existing TSR on third places also only focused on physical third places yet neglected e-servicescapes. Therefore, there is limited understanding of what characterizes online third places from a service perspective. More critically, no research to date has examined the association of online third places with well-being outcomes as consumers exchange social support and generate transformative values.
To address the research gaps, this study explores the characteristics of online third places from a service perspective and how these characteristics affect well-being. It does so by examining an online service community that became an online third place to understand the additional function of an online third place and its associated unintended consequences.
Method and sample
This qualitative and exploratory research examined a single case of the commercial weight management service, Michelle Bridges 12WBT (12WBT). This service provides weight management assistance through a 12-week digital program developed by health professionals, available both online and via smartphone applications, and has a large and developed online service community forum.
Using method triangulation, this study obtained data through three separate methods, including survey, semi-structured interviews, and netnography, and integrated their findings. The online survey collected data from 594 consumers of 12WBT at three time points: before the 12-week program starts (T1; baseline), at the end of the 12-week program (T2), and 12 weeks following the program’s completion (T3). Three open-ended questions were also asked to understand participants’ experiences with the service.
Next, 19 semi-structured interviews conducted with survey participants who consented to participate in further research provided deeper insights into the participants’ experiences. Interviews ranged between 32-65 minutes and were conducted face-to-face or over the phone.
Finally, a netnographic study examined the forum data of 12WBT at a separate time point to study the service experience in an unobtrusive way within a naturalistic setting. This helped avoid biases of undisguised methodologies where prior expectations can influence the insights generated. A total of 14,578 consumer posts from the online service community over a 3-month period were collected and analysed.
Key findings
The “online third place” framework was proposed, comprising seven characteristics of the online third place and proposing their associations with well-being outcomes:
- Accessibility, though does not directly influence consumers’ well-being, provides ease of access and participation. This is a fundamental characteristic of online third places that enables consumers to experience the other characteristics.
- Positive interactions are interactions that are emotionally uplifting and generate “positive vibes”. Positive interactions in online third places improve consumers’ pleasure, whereas negative interactions reduce pleasure.
- Supportive interactions that enable socially supportive participation improve consumers’ social connectedness and enjoyment, whereas unsupportive interactions reduce social connectedness and enjoyment.
- Equity between consumers and service providers, or shared status with fairness and justice, improves consumers’ empowerment and enjoyment, whereas perceived inequity reduces enjoyment.
- Common ground refers to shared experience with oneness of purpose or interest between consumers, which improves social connectedness and enjoyment.
- Social density is the size of the online service community (number of members). Lower social density in an online third place improves consumers’ social connectedness, whereas higher social density reduces social connectedness.
- Personalized interactions in an online third place improve consumers’ social connectedness, whereas impersonal interactions reduce social connectedness.
Recommendations
This new online third place framework can guide service managers who have an online service community potentially becoming an online third place or intended to be transformed into one. Service managers should develop strategies around the identified characteristics to improve the well-being outcomes of online third places.
To ensure supportive interactions, service providers should actively and regularly start and moderate threads with different conversation topics to facilitate opportunities for interactions exchanges of social support. However, this should not hinder consumers from freely engaging in naturalistic conversations. Positive interactions should also be encouraged through words of encouragement and celebration of achievements to draw participants in and make them feel at ease. Interactions can also be personalised with personal gestures in threads and responses.
It is important that service providers manage the equity of an online third place. Participants can be encouraged to support each other by addressing a question posed by a consumer, but at the same time should not feel overburdened to accommodate other consumers. Service providers should respect participants’ choices to take part or not in discussions.
Service providers are also recommended to provide common ground among consumers through tailoring subsections of the online service community to different groups’ specific interests. This fosters social connections while also mitigates any potential negative unintended consequences resulting from high social density. These subgroups minimize walls of text created by interactions of many people, which is less intimidating to consumers and therefore facilitates the building of social connections in online third places.
Researcher
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.