Curating Digital Coping Ecologies: How Queer Emerging Adults Use Social Media to Support Their Mental Health

Queer emerging adults (EAs) increasingly seek mental health support through digital technologies. While HCI has studied queer users’ experiences online, less is known about how queer EAs use social media everyday to support their mental health. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of queer EAs (ages 18-24, N = 313) in the United States, combining latent profile analysis and qualitative analysis. We examined how queer EAs employ various coping strategies to support their mental health. Our latent profile analysis revealed three distinct engagement profiles that combined support strategies differently. Our qualitative study examines how social media supported and hindered participants’ coping goals. We contribute to HCI by (1) highlighting how queer EAs curate their coping strategies and social media platforms, (2) offering the perspective of digital coping ecologies, and (3) offering design considerations for supporting queer EAs’ digital coping ecologies.