Behavioral and linguistic changes in the tweets in Spanish published by users who suffer from depression and who are taking antidepressant medication have been identified by Researchers from the Research Program in Biomedical Informatics (GRIB) at UPF and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute ( IMIM) of Barcelona.
The main objective was to detect the effects of antidepressants through changes in the language used in their tweets or in the way these people used Twitter .
668,842 tweets
The study included 186 users and their timelines with a total of 668,842 tweets .
During periods when users reported that they were being treated with antidepressant medications, their Twitter activity increased with longer messages but posting fewer messages at night .
They also interacted more with other users and there was also an increase in positive emotions related to happiness and surprise.
According to Ferran Sanz , professor at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at UPF (DCEXS) and director of the Research Program in Biomedical Informatics (GRIB) at IMIM and UPF:
The use of techniques based on big data and text mining, which allow detecting changes in the way in which users interact on social networks such as Twitter, can provide us with new opportunities for follow-up and monitoring of patients suffering from one of the most widespread problems disabling health care.