‍
Overview: Online social media platforms have been heavily utilized as peer support communities for health purposes. However, there is very little research on how people seek support with orthodontic treatment on social media. We find this a missed opportunity to understand treatments that are associated with appearance and require long term compliance. To understand how to support people in theirInvisalign journeys, we investigate people’s challenges and their interactions in online communities, observing Reddit posts and comments. We analyze 732 posts and 11,792 comments on r/Invisalign and r/AskDentist that are extracted with the search term“Invisalign”. We identified challenges of Invisalign patients, including pain and oral dysfunction, tray time, mealtime, appearance, and financial concerns. We discuss design implications to mitigate these challenges, such as preparing people for the challenges, motivating for better compliance, and forming identity and relationships in online communities.
‍
Methods: Online Data Scraping - Thematic Analysis
‍
Collaborators: Patrick Shih (Advisor), Tatiana Ringenberg (Researcher)