JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Obesity is one of the greatest modern public health problems, due to the associated health and economic consequences. Decreased physical activity is one of main societal changes driving the current obesity pandemic. Many studies have examined and incorporated social media to develop long-term health related behavior change, however a substantial difference was demonstrated in their use of social media.

Objective:

Our goals were to fill the gap in the literature and study how users are organically utilizing a social media platform for providing motivation. We discuss social media’s potential for providing peer support and then draw insights to inform the development of interventions for long-term health related behavior change.

Methods:

We examine motivational messages related to physical activity from social media platform called Twitter. First, we collect tweets related to physical activity for the purpose of weight loss. Second, we analyze using (a) a lexicon-based approach to extract and characterize motivation related tweets, (b) thematic analysis to examine common themes in retweets, and (c) topic models to understand prevalent factors concerning motivation and physical activity on Twitter. Third, two social networks are created to investigate organically induced peer support pairs or groups for sustaining physical activity and to form a deeper understanding of its feasibility in the real-world context.

Results:

We collect over 1.5 million physical activity related tweets from August 30th to November 6th 2018. A relatively small percentage of tweets mentions the term motivation; many of which are made on Mondays and/or during morning and late morning hours. The analysis of retweets shows that the following three themes are commonly conveyed in the platform: (a) a number of different types of motivation (self, process, consolation, mental, quotes), (b) promoting of individuals or groups, and (c) sharing or requesting of information. Topic models reveal that many of these users are weight lifters or someone trying to lose weight. Twitter users are also forging relations naturally, although the platform has not been connecting local users, since less than 2% of directed tweets are made from the same physical location.

Conclusions:

This study fills the gap of how individuals are organically using social media to encourage and sustain physical activity. The elements related to peer support are found in the organic use of social media, although more commonly used to exchange motivation among individuals from different locations. Our finding suggests that geographic location is less important in providing peer support, if the support is providing motivation, despite the users have fewer common elements (e.g., weather) that could affect their physical activity. This presents a unique opportunity to identify successful motivation providing peer support groups from a large user base. However, further research on the effects in the real-world context, as well as additional design and usability features improving user engagement are warranted to develop a successful intervention counteracting the current obesity pandemic. This is especially important for young adults, the main demographic user group for social media, as they develop lasting health related behaviors.