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Chapter 11
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8567-1.ch011
ABSTRACT
As people around the world are spending increasing amounts of time online, the question of how online
experiences are linked to health and wellbeing is essential. Depression has become a public health
concern around the world. Traditional methods for detecting depression rely on self-report techniques,
which sufer from inefcient data collection and processing. Research shows that symptoms linked to
mental illness are detectable on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and web forums, and automatic
methods are more and more able to locate inactivity and other mental disease. The pattern of social
media usage can be very helpful to predict the mental state of a user. This chapter also presents how
activities on Facebook are associated with the depressive states of users. Based on online logs, we can
predict the mental state of users.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter also presents how activities on Facebook are associated with the depressive states of users.
Based on online logs, we can predict the mental state of users. For example depressed individuals re-
ported smaller involvement on social networks regarding comments and likes, the two popular forms of
interactions. In contrast to the decreased level of interactions, depressed individuals showed an increase
in the wall post rates and were active online during odd times of the day, which can be interpreted as an
endemic behavior linked to the perceived degree of loneliness among young adults who are avid users
of social media.
Social Media Analytics to Predict
Depression Level in the Users
Mohammad Shahid Husain
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4864-9485
Ibri College of Applied Sciences, Oman