The Boosting Effect Of Social Networking On Resilient Processes

International audienceWhen facing serious challenges in life, individuals tend to find their way out through many coping mechanisms to override the harmful effects of changing circumstances on our mental health. In the last three years, the Arab world was shaken by a wave of protests fueled by a lack of social justice and a very difficult economic situation. During the five days following the fall of the dictatorship in Tunisia, Marzouki et al. (2012) analyzed a sizeable text corpus about the role played by Facebook during the revolution as perceived by Tunisian citizens. Although the results were in favor of a perception based on information sharing, media coverage and political challenges that Facebook was able to carry during the revolution, resilient processes were not explored in this seminal study. One key feature in Marzouki et al. work is the presence of a Virtual Collective Consciousness (VCC) generated by a momentum of complex interactions between individuals sharing common goals and driven by a widespread consensus. On the other hand, strengthening social ties during times of misfortune is a common feature among the resilient processes. Our hypothesis is as follows: Facebook can be also a placeholder for collective resilient processes modulated by risk factors during a crisis (i.e., revolution). After revisiting the same corpus collected by Marzouki et al., the analysis of similarities showed that the Facebook informational support is well anchored in seeking social support. Moreover, protective factors (mainly collective) seem to give rise to this informational role significantly assigned to Facebook during the uprisings. These findings show that the ability to keep working toward a goal in the face of difficulties can be enhanced by virtual interactions, which makes social networking a good outlet for resilience when positive feedbacks and common shared values are available in the cyberspace