Characterization of Anorexia Nervosa on Social Media : Textual, Visual, Relational, Behavioral, and Demographical Analysis
Ramírez-Cifuentes, Diana 
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Departament de Tecnologies de la Informació i les Comunicacions)
Freire, Ana 
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona School of Management)
Baeza-Yates, Ricardo 
(Northeastern University. Institute for Experiential AI)
Sanz Lamora, Nadia 
(Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))
Àlvarez, Aida 
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
González-Rodríguez, Alexandre 
(Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))
Lozano Rochel, Meritxell
(Fundación Instituto de Trastornos Alimentarios)
Llobet Vives, Roger
(Fundación Instituto de Trastornos Alimentarios)
Velazquez, Diego Alejandro
(Centre de Visió per Computador (Bellaterra, Catalunya))
Gonfaus, Josep
(Visual Tagging Services)
Gonzàlez, Jordi
(Centre de Visió per Computador (Bellaterra, Catalunya))
Data: |
2021 |
Resum: |
Eating disorders are psychological conditions characterized by unhealthy eating habits. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is defined as the belief of being overweight despite being dangerously underweight. The psychological signs involve emotional and behavioral issues. There is evidence that signs and symptoms can manifest on social media, wherein both harmful and beneficial content is shared daily. This study aims to characterize Spanish-speaking users showing anorexia signs on Twitter through the extraction and inference of behavioral, demographical, relational, and multimodal data. By using the transtheoretical model of health behavior change, we focus on characterizing and comparing users at the different stages of the model for overcoming AN, including treatment and full recovery periods. We analyzed the writings, posting patterns, social relationships, and images shared by Twitter users who underwent different stages of anorexia nervosa and compared the differences among users going through each stage of the illness and users in the control group (ie, users without AN). We also analyzed the topics of interest of their followees (ie, users followed by study participants). We used a clustering approach to distinguish users at an early phase of the illness (precontemplation) from those that recognize that their behavior is problematic (contemplation) and generated models for the detection of tweets and images related to AN. We considered two types of control users-focused control users, which are those that use terms related to anorexia, and random control users. We found significant differences between users at each stage of the recovery process (P <. 001) and control groups. Users with AN tweeted more frequently at night, with a median sleep time tweets ratio (STTR) of 0. 05, than random control users (STTR=0. 04) and focused control users (STTR=0. 03). Pictures were relevant for the characterization of users. Focused and random control users were characterized by the use of text in their profile pictures. We also found a strong polarization between focused control users and users in the first stages of the disorder. There was a strong correlation among the shared interests between users with AN and their followees (ρ =0. 96). In addition, the interests of recovered users and users in treatment were more highly correlated to those corresponding to the focused control group (ρ =0. 87 for both) than those of AN users (ρ =0. 67), suggesting a shift in users' interest during the recovery process. We mapped the signs of AN to social media context. These results support the findings of previous studies that focused on other languages and involved a deep analysis of the topics of interest of users at each phase of the disorder. The features and patterns identified provide a basis for the development of detection tools and recommender systems. |
Ajuts: |
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MDM-2015-0502 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-65464-R
|
Drets: |
Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.  |
Llengua: |
Anglès |
Document: |
Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada |
Matèria: |
Social media ;
Twitter ;
Spanish ;
Anorexia nervosa ;
Eating disorders ;
User characterization |
Publicat a: |
Journal of medical Internet research, Vol. 23 Num. 7 (july 2021) , ISSN 1438-8871 |
DOI: 10.2196/25925
PMID: 34283033
PMID: 34637394
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Registre creat el 2021-08-30, darrera modificació el 2024-06-11