Exploring Korean adolescent stress on social media: a semantic network analysis

Abstract

Background Considering that adolescents spend considerable time on the Internet and social media and experience high levels of stress, it is difficult to find a study that investigates adolescent stress through a big data-based network analysis of social media. Hence, this study was designed to provide basic data to establish desirable stress coping strategies for adolescents based on a big data-based network analysis of social media for Korean adolescent stress. The purpose of this study was to (1) identify social media words that express stress in adolescents and (2) investigate the associations between those words and their types. Methods To analyse adolescent stress, we used social media data collected from online news and blog websites and performed semantic network analysis to understand the relationships among keywords extracted in the collected data. Results The top five words used by Korean adolescents were counselling, school, suicide, depression, and activity in online news, and diet, exercise, eat, health, and obesity in blogs. As the top keywords of the blog are mainly related to diet and obesity, it reflects adolescents’ high degree of interest in their bodies; the body is also a primary source of adolescent stress. In addition, blogs contained more content about the causes and symptoms of stress than online news, which focused more on stress resolution and coping. This highlights the trend that social blogging is a new channel for sharing personal information. Conclusions The results of this study are valuable as they were derived through a social big data analysis of data obtained from online news and blogs, providing a wide range of implications related to adolescent stress. Hence this study can contribute basic data for the stress management of adolescents and their mental health management in the future.

Association between smartphone overdependence and mental health in South Korean adolescents: a secondary data analysis

“…More than 50% of Korean adolescents both at-risk and not at risk for smartphone overdependence reported pressure on grades and career paths as the leading source of perceived stress, followed by physical appearance accounting for more than 10% of adolescents. Korea's competitive academic environment exerts significant pressure on adolescents to achieve high academic results, resulting in considerable stress [26], and, Koreans are reportedly concerned about their appearance [26]. These sociocultural characteristics make Korean adolescents more susceptible to stress, which increases the risk of smartphone overdependence and suicidal ideation [26,27].…”

“…Korea's competitive academic environment exerts significant pressure on adolescents to achieve high academic results, resulting in considerable stress [26], and, Koreans are reportedly concerned about their appearance [26]. These sociocultural characteristics make Korean adolescents more susceptible to stress, which increases the risk of smartphone overdependence and suicidal ideation [26,27].…”

“…The total score ranges from 10 to 40 points, with a higher score indicating a higher level of smartphone overdependence. Based on the total score obtained, individuals can be classified into three groups: a normal group (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22), a potential-risk group (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30), and a high-risk group (31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40). For this study, we merged the potential-risk group and high-risk group into the risk group (scores ≥ 23) and compared it with the normal group (scores < 23).…”

Comparison of Impressions of COVID-19 Vaccination and Influenza Vaccination in Japan by Analyzing Social Media Using Text Mining

“…Social media use continues to grow worldwide, and there are numerous tweets about various health problems, including human papillomavirus infection [ 12 ], suicide [ 13 ], stress [ 14 ], air pollution [ 15 ], and others [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Keelan et al examined 303 posts on HPV immunization and classified 157 (52%) as positive, 129 (43%) as negative, and 17 (6%) as ambivalent [ 12 ].…”

“…Another study investigated the relationship between suicide-related tweets and suicidal behavior in order to identify young individuals at risk on the Internet [ 13 ]. Song et al obtained social data from online news and blogs, which provided insights into adolescent stress [ 14 ]. Additionally, a study collected air pollution data from 2210 monitoring sites across China, used keyword-based filtering to identify individual messages related to air pollution and health on Chinese Twitter ® , and revealed the correlation between air pollution and related tweets during periods and locations with poor air quality [ 15 ].…”