Social Media Perceptions Among Young Adults With Cancer - Aim 1: Interviews

All participants completed a 60-minute semi-structured interview on Zoom, describing recent in-person interactions with strangers and acquaintances and giving feedback on image sets and mock social media intervention messages.

60-minute semi-structured interview with review of three image sets (loneliness, connectedness, spaces) and two mock intervention messages (connected peer general story, lonely peer cancer story).

Using a standardized semi-structured interview guide, participants reviewed three image sets (peers experiencing loneliness, peers experiencing connectedness, and spaces where connection could occur) and two mock intervention messages formatted as social media posts. Participants described what they liked most and least, what caught their attention, whether the images and posts conveyed their intended meaning, and whether the posts might motivate in-person interactions. Interviews were audio-recorded and professionally transcribed. Two coders independently coded each transcript using a thematic analysis framework with an a priori codebook (refined after initial coding), and disagreements were resolved by consensus.

Using a standardized semi-structured interview guide, participants described recent in-person interactions with acquaintances and with strangers (asked separately), including where the interaction occurred, how it made them feel, situations that made them comfortable, and experiences discussing their cancer. Transcripts were coded for positive and negative social interactions using the same thematic analysis approach. Themes were used to inform intervention message themes, personal stories, and behavioral tips.

Using a standardized semi-structured interview guide, participants were asked on which social media platforms they would expect to see posts like the mock intervention messages and whether and how they would share them. Platform preferences were coded and summarized using the same thematic analysis approach.