Table 2.

Emergent themes and subthemes of the beneficial roles of social media identified by long-hauler women.

Themes and subthemes		Exemplar quotes
Social connection
	Group membership	“So I said, ‘Well, maybe if I am part of something…it is gonna be like a, like a, like a motivation for me to go through something for me. Um, because again, we are always thinking about others, you know, like, what, why am I complaining.”
	Social support	“I may not exactly know what you’re going through, but I am here to help and here to listen because a lot of times you just want a hearing—somebody to hear you.”
	Network building	“I also was posting and doing that, which, like, kept me motivated [to continue] sharing and connecting with other people…”
	Belonging	“I probably gravitated more towards that group…and I would talk about that Facebook group a lot. Like, it felt like that was like a support group, and it felt like, you know, I am not crazy, like some other people are having it, too. And I would be active in, like, commenting on, like, you know, answering people’s questions or, like, sharing, like, a connection that I have with another person that wrote on there.”
Religiosity and spirituality
	Prayer	“I join[ed] an online group for praying.”
	Fellowship	The loss of a group member highlighted a sense of duty and belongingness toward one another in the online prayer group.
	Online worship	“I will go to one of my favorite pastors on YouTube and listen.”
	Meditation	“I am in a meditation group that I go to online, and we do meditation together. And then, there is, like, headspace and calm, those apps. So, there is a wide variety of different things. Like chakras, and then there is, you know, just all different kinds of relaxation and tension. Like, you squeeze your arms and look at your feet.”
Information gathering
	Long hauler–shared information	“It is kind of, like, you form your own little support groups of people that had COVID. And, you know, their symptoms vary, and you are like, ‘Oh, what did you do for this?’ Or like the hair loss. That is another thing—hair loss. My hair is still not well, or whatever. And then, you know, people debating, like, ‘Are you taking the vaccine? Are you not getting the vaccine?’ So having those little groups to talk—it is good.”
	Symptom management	“I downloaded an app on my phone, and I am monitoring, like, I am documenting all of my activities for the day every day so that I can document, like, different symptoms that I am having and, like, what is, like, a trigger.”
	Physician-shared information	In reference to streaming YouTube videos: “…the different doctors and, like, what their findings are, what their recommendations are.”
Recreation
	Entertainment	“I will allow myself; it does not happen every day, but, like, just to play some mind games, you know, a game of solitaire or a game…on my phone just to give myself a break.”
	Relaxation	“To help go to sleep at night. They try to, kind of, get me to relax, or whatever. And so, I think the biggest thing for me is disconnecting from all the things that I have going on, and I just…I struggle with that.”