JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Loneliness is a public health concern and increasingly individuals experiencing loneliness are seeking support on online forums - some of which focus on discussions around loneliness (loneliness forum). Loneliness may influence how individuals express themselves and interact with others in different settings or forums not related to loneliness or well-being (non-loneliness forums). Hence, in order to design and implement appropriate and efficient online loneliness interventions, it is important to understand how individuals who express loneliness on online loneliness forums communicate in non-loneliness forums they belong; this could provide insights into the support needs of these users.

Objective:

This work studies how users who express the feeling of loneliness in an online loneliness forum communicate in an online non-loneliness forum.

Methods:

2,401 users who expressed loneliness in posts published on a loneliness forum on Reddit and had published posts in a non-loneliness forum were identified. Using a natural language processing method, Latent dirichlet allocation (LDA), a psycholinguistic dictionary, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), and the word-score based language features: valence, arousal, and dominance, we determine the language use differences in posts published in the non-loneliness forum by these users compared to a control group of users who did not belong to any loneliness forum on Reddit.

Results:

We find that in posts published in the non-loneliness forum, users who expressed loneliness tend to use more words associated with the LIWC categories on sadness (cohen’s d =0.10) and seeking to socialize (cohen’s d =0.114) and use words associated with valence (cohen’s d=0.364) and dominance (cohen’s d = 0.117); also, they tend to publish posts related to LDA topics such as relationships (cohen’s d= 0.105) and family and friends / mental health (cohen’s d = 0.10).

Conclusions:

There are clear distinctions in language use in non-loneliness forum posts by users who express loneliness compared to a control group of users. These findings can help with the design and implementation of online interventions around loneliness.