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Contrary to these unassailable social trends , pre- internet theories of social support would lead us to conclude that the internet should be an unpromising medium for the proliferation of social support groups. This is not to deny the genuine advantages of the online version of the support group. The internet’s anonymity, the convenience to connect at any time and place, and the potential access to large numbers of like-minded individuals offer an attractive option for support and sociability particularly for individuals who because of disability or stigma feel inhibited or even excluded from participation in face-to-face support groups.Despite these virtues, the online support group lacks the very features of the traditional support group––small size, the closed nature of group membership, and the immediacy of direct and recurrent personal contact––that received theory posits foster a trusting group environment that are the necessary conditions for shared intimacies, expressions of felt emotional support and genuine companionship.
Despite these theoretical doubts, Bambina’s research and other empirical studies persuasively document that online support groups are capable of conveying not only information and advice, but also emotional support and companionship among strangers with no expectations of direct personal encounters. How is it possible that the internet has become a medium where numerous individuals, all former strangers sharing a common social problem or health condition, find through computer-mediated communications respite from their daily struggles, a genuine source of support and sociability? This is the central theoretical paradox that Bambina investigates in her study of an online cancer support group.