A new study claims that Facebook and other social media data can help medical experts and other researchers identify people suffering from mental illnesses. The research explained that users' Facebook activity can be used to find people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and mood disorders more than a year before their first psychiatric hospitalization.
NPJ Schizophrenia reported that the study collected 142,390 Facebook images and 3,404,959 messages. The new research was also able to gather 223 people to participate in the study.
However, the experts confirmed that the study's findings are not meant to replace clinical psychiatric assessments. Although this is the case, the results still suggest that social media data is still useful since the information can be an addition to clinical assessment to support decision-making.
Data accuracy
The machine-learning algorithms used in the study were able to provide 52% accuracy when it comes to identifying people with schizophrenia illness. On the other hand, the technology showed an accuracy of 56% for participants without a psychiatric disorder and an accuracy of 57% for participants with mood disorders.
"Much like an X-ray or blood test is used to inform health status, Facebook data, and the insights we gather, could one day serve to provide additional collateral, clinically meaningful patient information," said the researchers via Mobi Health News.
The study also focused on the type of language the participants used in Facebook messenger.
What researchers found out
The study's researchers discovered that participants with Schizophrenia tend to use words related to perception. These people are more likely to use second-person pronouns and express negative emotions.
They also use informal language such as lol, thx, and btw. These participants also avoid using punctuation as possible.
This includes "see," "feel," and "hear." On the other hand, people with psychiatric disorders and mood disorder are usually posting photos with smaller width and height.
Individuals with mood disorders are posting images with less yellow and with more blue colors, unlike those who have no mental illnesses.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
