Sharing information online builds a healthy community

Personal information is shared by millions of internet users daily. But what motivates people to share sometimes intimate and detailed information with a world of strangers? Darryl Jackson from Healthshare looks at this phenomena.

The New York Times Customer Insight Group recently conducted a three-phase study, titled "The Psychology of Sharing," to determine what motivates people to share information online.  Understanding the factors that spur the sharing of content on the web is valuable to social media experts, not-for-profits, marketers and business people in general.  

The first phase of the study involved in-person interviews in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.  The second phase of the study was a one-week sharing panel. The final phase included a survey of 2,500 online sharers and the identification and classification of sharers.