Mental Health Discourse And Social Media Which Sciencedirect

Leo Migdal

-Dec 8, 2025, 5:15 PM

mental health discourse and social media which sciencedirect

The global burden of mental health disorders has increased steadily during the past decade. Today, mental illness is the leading cause of total years lived with disability. At the same time, global mental health policies and budgets fall short of addressing the societal burden as mental health discourse languishes in the shadows due to stigma. As social media have become an increasingly popular source of information, they create opportunities as well as threats for mental health discourse. On the one hand, social media can help to bring awareness to stigmatized topics as they give marginalized members of society the possibility to share experiences and voice their discontent. On the other hand, mental health discourse on social media may lead to stigmatization.

To date, little is known about social media mental health discourse and what drives it. This study addresses these research gaps by (1) mapping the mental health discourse on Twitter and (2) analyzing mechanisms of cultural power through which some mental health topics take prevalence over the others. Drawing on Twitter data, this research employs innovative methods of topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and panel data regression analyses. Theoretically, it combines, in a multidisciplinary fashion, concepts such as emotional energy and cognitive focus from sociology and bandwagon behavior from economics. Our findings show that low-cost attention mechanisms are ineffective in fostering online mental health discourse, whereas emotional energy and discursive variability have a positive influence by engaging audiences, creating online solidarity, and speaking to... Social media mental health discourse is also shown to be quite diverse and more stigma-neutral than such discourse in traditional media.

Keywords: Cognitive-emotional currents; Cultural power; Discourse analysis; Emotional energy; Mental health; Social media; Stigma; Topic modeling. Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved. PurposeSocial media are increasingly pivotal as the platform where activists and observers plan, promote, and respond to collective actions. To examine how mental health discourse might be impacted by mass protests, this study analyzed their time-dependent association during the 2019 anti-government social unrest in Hong Kong.MethodsConsecutive day-by-day user-generated content on online forums and...

A Cantonese term-list was created to identify terms related to mass protests and mental health discourse. The frequency of comments containing such terms was analyzed using time series models.ResultsThere were 3,572,665 social media comments in the investigation period. As hypothesized, the frequency of comments with mass protest terms was higher on days with mass protests than on days without. Frequency of comments with both mass protest- and mental health-terms was also higher on days with protests than days without. A time-lagged effect of protest-terms was found on online forums but not on SNS. Our results suggest a positive association between offline protest activities and online psychological reactions.ConclusionsSocial media content reveals discussion of mental health concerns stemming from, or exacerbated by, social unrest.

The potential mutual influences between mass protests and online reactions, as well as the functional differences between online forums and SNS in this regard, are discussed. Street protests and their associated mental health discourse can be readily detected on popular online forums. Mental health services should consider such dynamic relationships between on- and offline activities. This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of...

However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry... This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness. Background: Social media is a relatively new and impactful way to connect millions of people around the world.

The intersection of mental health and social media is a poorly studied, yet important area of research. Specifically, with regard to college-aged youth, social media can potentially offer an educational tool to enhance mental health awareness or augment treatment when it is used for professional purposes by mental health advocates or... There is also the added risk of disinformation, cyberbullying, and privacy breaches. Objective: This review aims to assess the current state of social media use and its influence on mental health, especially in college-age youth. Methods: The authors of this paper utilized PubMed and Medline databases to review the most recent experimental studies and literature reviews available on the topic of mental health and social media. Results: Abstracts and relevant papers were read in full, and information from these studies was cited accordingly.

Conclusion: The authors conclude that although more research needs to be conducted, social media may offer benefits for mental health awareness, education, and treatment, specifically in populations such as college-age youth. UNSTRUCTURED Users of highly visual social media (HVSM), such as Snapchat and Instagram, share their messages through images, rather than relying on words. A significant proportion of people that use these platforms are adolescents. Previous research reveals mixed evidence regarding the impact of online social technologies on this age group’s mental wellbeing, but it is uncertain whether the psychological effects of visual content alone differ from text-driven social... This scoping review maps existing literature that has published evidence about highly visual social media, specifically its psychological impact on young people. Nine electronic databases and grey literature from 2010 until March 2019 were reviewed for articles describing any aspect of visual social media, young people and their mental health.

The screening process retrieved 239 articles. With the application of eligibility criteria, this figure was reduced to 25 articles for analysis. Results indicate a paucity of data that exclusively examines HVSM. The predominance of literature relies on quantitative methods to achieve its objectives. Many findings are inconsistent and lack the richness that qualitative data may provide to explore the reasons for theses mixed findings. BACKGROUND Adolescents with depression often turn to social media to express their feelings, for support, and for educational purposes.

Little is known about how Reddit, a forum-based platform, compares to Twitter, a newsfeed platform, when it comes to content surrounding depression. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to identify differences between Reddit and Twitter concerning how depression is discussed and represented online. METHODS A content analysis of Reddit posts and Twitter posts, using r/depression and #depression, identified signs of depression using the DSM-IV criteria. Other youth-related topics, including School, Family, and Social Activity, and the presence of medical or promotional content were also coded for. Relative frequency of each code was then compared between platforms as well as the average DSM-IV score for each platform. RESULTS A total of 102 posts were included in this study, with 53 Reddit posts and 49 Twitter posts.

Findings suggest that Reddit has more content with signs of depression with 92% than Twitter with 24%. 28.3% of Reddit posts included medical content compared to Twitter with 18.4%. 53.1% of Twitter posts had promotional content while Reddit posts didn’t contain promotional content. CONCLUSIONS Users with depression seem more willing to discuss their mental health on the subreddit r/depression than on Twitter. Twitter users also use #depression with a wider variety of topics, not all of which actually involve a case of depression.

Mental Health Discourse And Social Media Which Sciencedirect

People Also Search

The Global Burden Of Mental Health Disorders Has Increased Steadily

To Date, Little Is Known About Social Media Mental Health

Keywords: Cognitive-emotional Currents; Cultural Power; Discourse Analysis; Emotional Energy; Mental

A Cantonese Term-list Was Created To Identify Terms Related To

The Potential Mutual Influences Between Mass Protests And Online Reactions,