Pavelko, Gall Myrick research looks at social media perceptions of OCD
Doctoral student Rachelle Pavelko and assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick are authors of “That’s so OCD: The Effects of Disease Trivialization Via Social Media on User Perceptions and Impression Formation,” published in Computers in Human Behavior.
The two developed an experiment to analyze how viewing trivial language about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on Twitter shapes social media users’ perceptions of people with OCD. They studied if saying “that’s so OCD” or using the hashtag “#ocd” with non-clinical behaviors shaped users’ perceptions those who actually do have OCD. They found that the use of trivial language actually decreased social media users’ liking of the person using such language, among other findings.