Close X
Sunday, November 24, 2024
ADVT 
Tech

Twitter Posts Can Reveal How Lonely You Are: Study

Darpan News Desk IANS, 06 Nov, 2019 09:20 PM
  • Twitter Posts Can Reveal How Lonely You Are: Study

Researchers have found that users who tweet on loneliness are much more likely to write about mental well-being issues and things like struggles with relationships, substance use and insomnia on Twitter.


By applying linguistic analytic models to tweets, researchers were able to gain an insight into the topics and themes that could be associated with loneliness.


"Loneliness can be a slow killer, as some of the medical problems associated with it can take decades to manifest," said the study's lead author Sharath Chandra Guntuku, from University of Pennsylvania in the US.


"If we are able to identify lonely individuals and intervene before the health conditions associated with the themes we found begin to unfold, we have a change to help those much earlier in their lives. This could be very powerful and have long-lasting effects on public health," Guntuku said.


By determining typical themes and linguistic markers posted to social media that are associated with people who are lonely, the team has uncovered some of the ingredients necessary to construct a 'loneliness' prediction system.


As part of the study, published in the journal BMJ, researchers analysed public accounts from users based in Pennsylvania and found that 6,202 accounts used words such as 'lonely' or 'alone' more than five times between 2012 and 2016.


Comparing the entire Twitter timelines of these users to a matched group who did not have such language included their posts, the researchers showed that 'lonely' users tweeted nearly twice as much and were much more likely to do so at night.


When the tweets were analysed via several different linguistic analytic models, the users who posted about loneliness had an extremely high association with anger, depression and anxiety, when compared to the 'non-lonely' group.


Additionally, the lonely groups were significantly associated with tweeting about struggles with relationships (for example, using phrases like 'want somebody' or 'no one to') and substance use ('smoke,' 'weed,' and 'drunk')


"On Twitter, we found lonely users expressing a need for social support, and it appears that the use of expletives and the expression of anger is a sign of that being unfulfilled," Guntuku said.


Users in the group that didn't post about loneliness seemed to display some social connections, as they were found to be more likely to engage in conversations, especially by including others' user names (using '@twitter_handle') in their tweets.


In the future, the researchers hope to develop a better measure of the different dimensions of loneliness that online users are feeling and expressing.

MORE Tech ARTICLES

Now, read audio clips on Facebook messenger

Now, read audio clips on Facebook messenger
Social networking site Facebook has launched a new feature for its messenger app that automatically transcribes any file sent as a voice recording and...

Now, read audio clips on Facebook messenger

Biosensor to help machines smell like humans

Biosensor to help machines smell like humans
In a first, an Indian-origin researcher from the University of Manchester has created a biosensor that can help machines smell the way humans do....

Biosensor to help machines smell like humans

Have You Shared Your First Profile Photo On Facebook?

Have You Shared Your First Profile Photo On Facebook?
The latest Facebook trend requires users to post their first Facebook profile photos and then nominate others to do the same.

Have You Shared Your First Profile Photo On Facebook?

Click text and get it translated on Google app

Click text and get it translated on Google app
For a faster real-time translation, Google has added some new features to its famous Translate App....

Click text and get it translated on Google app

Car rental firm's mobile app now triggers SOS message

Car rental firm's mobile app now triggers SOS message
An online car rental company Thursday added a safety feature to its mobile phone app through which a passenger can trigger an SMS and an e-mail to three...

Car rental firm's mobile app now triggers SOS message

Next generation electric car battery in making

Next generation electric car battery in making
Scientists at University of Waterloo have announced a breakthrough in lithium-sulphur technology to develop a new generation of cheaper, lighter and more powerful electric car battery....

Next generation electric car battery in making