Discussion of mental health on Twitter, in the UK, in December 2013.
Created by Beth Granter for Brilliant Noise http://brilliantnoise.com.
Using Brandwatch.
2. Scope of research
Weâve looked at a sample of discussions about mental
health on Twitter in the UK, over the period of one month.
Weâve looked at:
- most discussed topics
- tweets which had the most impact
- organisations / individuals with the most impact
- diïŹerences in conversation between genders
- how much people talked about themselves vs others
3. Key findings
Depression was the most discussed mental health issue followed by
insomnia and anxiety. (Slide 25)
Aside from Christmas, most discussed additional factors were stress,
alcohol and food. (Slide 42)
Schizophrenia was discussed more by men; Anxiety, eating disorders and
panic were discussed more by women. (Slide 68)
Alcohol, autism, dyslexia, bullying, disability, homelessness and race all
discussed more by men. Food, abuse/assault and LGBTQ discussed more
by women. (Slide 69)
@mindcharity was the organisation with the most impact and made
signiïŹcantly more tweets than any other MH charity account. (Slide 22)
The most popular content was by generic âfactâ type accounts. (various)
4. How charities could use the findings
Charities can be reassured that their focus on depression reïŹects what people are
talking about most.
They might decide to increase their discussion of issues such as insomnia, which were
discussed more by others than by the charities themselves.
RE gender diïŹerences, charities might compare how the rate of discussion reïŹects or
contradicts statistics of diagnosis, and consider what this means to suïŹerers.
Other charities might take note of the high volume and impact of tweeting by
@mindcharity, and use this as a benchmark to aim for in their own tweeting strategy.
The popularity of MH facts could inïŹuence content strategy.
This study reïŹects a snapshot in time, where the prevalence of some topics will be driven
by seasonality and/or the news agenda, whilst others will be consistent. Repeating the
study on an ongoing basis could shed more light on these patterns. Charities may want
to consider how easily they can respond to current events to raise the proïŹle of key
issues at optimum times.
5. Out of scope
Some of the things you asked us to look at, but
which we unfortunately werenât able to do at this
point include:
- the eïŹect of tweeting on peopleâs mental health
- what people do after tweeting / reading a tweet
6. Key words / query
Key words / query = the words which need to be
mentioned in order to appear in our results.
Over 100 key words were included, mostly from this
list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_mental_disorders
We also included a list of the Twitter accounts of
major mental health organisations in the UK, to
capture everything they tweeted and any mention of
them.
The full query is in the appendix.
7. Considerations
Some key words around the topic of mental health are used
quite commonly, and not necessarily whilst discussing them in
the context of a serious mental health issue. e.g. âstressâ.
- this means that mentions of âstressâ were only brought in
when other terms in the query such as âmental healthâ were
also mentioned. Similarly âbereavementâ was not included
independently.
- autism, aspergerâs syndrome and dyslexia were removed as
they are not considered to be mental health conditions (ref.
NHS). These were however discussed by people within
mental health conversations, so are categorised in this
report as related issues.
8. Results
Our sample covered the following numbers of tweets, all tweeted
between 01 December 2013 and 31 December 2013, by people in the
UK.
We divided the conversations into:
191,250
21,722
people talking about mental health, generally or speciïŹcally
people talking to mental health organisations directly
what mental health organisations were saying
Tweets can be in more than one category.
2,576
9. Topics (free text, uncategorised)
Across mental health conversations, words or phrases which
were most commonly used were:
Christmas
Feelings
Missing someone
causes insomnia
suïŹering from
depression
Xmas my teachers
gave
suïŹer from insomnia
10. Topics (free text, uncategorised)
Words and phrases mentioned the most, to
and from mental health organisations
To mental health
organisations
Xmas
From mental health
organisations
Christmas / Xmas
People with mental health Watch / read
1 in 4
New Year
Great
Young people
Retweet
Emotional support
Read
NIMHchats
11. Top links (mental health)
Links which were tweeted the most overall:
Horoscope site mentioning paranoia
Horoscope site mentioning anxiety
MP John Woodcock blogs about depression
Depression animation on Upworthy
Top 6 tips to beat depression article
10 symptoms of depression article
Christmas social anxiety BBC article
Advert for Frankincense to treat depression
and anxiety
Depression animation on Upworthy
Photo tweeted by Frankie Boyle
12. Top hashtags and most mentioned tweeter
Hashtags and accounts mentioned the
most, in general mental health discussion,
and to and from MH organisations
Mental health
To mental health
organisations
From mental health
organisations
14. Tweets with most impact overall
Aside from tweets by @Fact, the top tweets were about the
Mandela memorial service sign language interpreter having
schizophrenia.
http://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/statuses/411027460214779904
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/statuses/411101780496248832
15. Tweets with most impact overall
Next top tweets were both by Stephen Fry asking for support
for Mind:
http://twitter.com/stephenfry/statuses/414697033199411202
http://twitter.com/stephenfry/statuses/414390661279145984
16. Individual authors with most impact overall
Although
ïŹltered to
exclude Twitter
accounts
recognised as
âorganisationalâ,
all of the top
authors except
@Lesism,
@fruitbatwalton
and
@Sectioned_
only retweeted
@Fact, so are
likely to be
automated, not
individuals).
20. Tweets with the most impact mentioning
âmental healthâ
http://twitter.com/stephenfry/statuses/414697033199411202
http://twitter.com/stephenfry/statuses/413000714311307264
http://twitter.com/caitlinmoran/statuses/411043726765862913
http://twitter.com/Fact/statuses/413504599509581824
23. Mental health organisations with most
impact overall
Left to right in order of total combined impact; height of bar
represents volume of tweets. e.g. TimetoChange published fewer
tweets than @MindFullUK, but the former had more impact
24. Topics grouped by issue
and additional factors
Due to the variety of ways people
talk about mental health issues,
conversations were categorised
by type of mental health issue
(e.g. depression) and by other
topics discussed in relation to
mental health (e.g. money).
Note - mentions can be in more
than one category.
26. Topics (grouped by issue & query)
Mental health discussion
74,545
28,530
24,960
19,171
8,391
5,340
5,212
3,932
3,807
16,735
Depression
Insomnia
Anxiety
Mental health
OCD
Bipolar
Schizophrenia
Panic
Eating disorders
Uncategorised
To mental health organisations
3221
1,552
267
261
154
90
41
39
7
16,027
Mental health
203
Depression
140
Schizophrenia
40
Anxiety
17
Bipolar
13
Eating disorders
5
Panic
3
OCD
2
Insomnia
0
Uncategorised 2,142
From mental health
organisations
Mental health
Depression
Anxiety
Schizophrenia
Bipolar
Eating disorders
Panic
OCD
Insomnia
Uncategorised
Schizophrenia and anxiety discussed in similar volumes TO mental health orgs, but anxiety
discussed twice as much as schizophrenia BY the orgs. Insomnia and OCD discussed in high
volume in general, but in low volume to or by mental health organisations. Eating disorders and
Schizophrenia discussed less than other major MH issues in general, but discussed more to and
by MH organisations. Most of the conversations to and from MH organisations were not about
these speciïŹc MH issues, but more varied.
29. Depression
Depression was overwhelmingly the most common
term. Where mental health organisations were not
included, a lot of people were using the term quite
casually, and likely not intending to discuss it as a
serious mental health condition. e.g. âIâm depressed
that...â was often used as a general term to denote
something someone didnât like, as an alternative to
saying âsadâ or âunhappyâ.
Mood swings, cancer and a story about
@JWoodCockMP having depression were discussed.
31. Tweets with most impact about depression
The top 99 tweets by impact score were all by @Fact,
an account followed by over half a million people,
tweeting facts such as:
All of which received a large number of retweets.
@FactsInYourFace tweeted a large number of similar high reaching
tweets.
https://twitter.com/Fact/statuses/417497286009028608
32. Tweets with most impact about depression
Aside from @Facts or @FactsInYourFace, top tweets
about depression were:
http://twitter.com/guardian/statuses/408510649804009472
http://twitter.com/OwenJones84/statuses/408535972641382400
34. Insomnia
Insomnia was another very common term, but not when
people were talking to mental health organisations. It was
commonly used by people to simply describe the fact that
they couldnât get to sleep that night, right then, rather than
discussing an ongoing mental health problem.
The fact that people describe this symptom regularly but
donât discuss it with mental health organisations is interesting.
Do they use the term too lightly, or not take it seriously, or not
consider it a MH issue?
36. Tweets with the most impact about insomnia
As with depression, the top tweets by impact score were also all by
@Fact and @FactsInYourFace. After this, top tweets were:
http://twitter.com/TimzyHasAnEgo/statuses/408117231420461056
http://twitter.com/carakilbey/statuses/408027797685559296
38. Anxiety
Anxiety was a very common term, and in most cases
people seemed to be using it to talk seriously about
their own experiences of anxiety.
Depression and panic attacks were discussed
alongside anxiety, as well as eating disorders.
That said, the most retweeted tweet about anxiety was
a Christmas poem about homework.
40. Tweets with the most impact about anxiety
As with depression and insomnia, the top tweets by impact score
were also all by @Fact and @FactsInYourFace. After this, top tweets
were:
http://twitter.com/BBCNews/statuses/413587314297028608
http://twitter.com/TheTumblrPosts/statuses/410179462861316096
42. Topics grouped by additional factor
These additional factors are not mental health issues, but we were interested in how much these factors were discussed
alongside mental health discussion.
*did not include mentions of âgayâ due to high volume of homophobic use of the word as an insult. Likewise discussions of
race are likely to be higher than reported here due to complexity of terms in conversation.
43. Topics (grouped by additional factor)
These additional factors are not mental health issues, but we were interested in how much these factors were discussed
alongside mental health discussion.
NB âalcohol
abuseâ and
âalcoholismâ
were included
in main query
(Christmas excluded)
(Christmas excluded)
44. Topics (grouped by additional factor)
Mental health
9,922
5,471
3,752
2,068
1,615
689
675
600
491
274
259
172
173,550
Christmas
Stress
Alcohol
Food
Money
Abuse/assault
Autism
Disability
Bullying
LGBTQ
Homelessness
Race
Uncategorised
To mental health
organisations
2,945
366
347
191
182
114
65
60
50
35
22
6
20,284
Christmas
Money
Stress
Food
Autism
Disability
LGBTQ
Bullying
Alcohol
Homelessness
Abuse/assault
Race
Uncategorised
From mental health
organisations
445
61
46
44
16
14
10
7
6
5
3
1
2,363
Christmas
Food
Money
Stress
Disability
Alcohol
LGBTQ
Homelessness
Autism
Bullying
Abuse/assault
Race
Uncategorised
Alcohol/abuse/assault and MH discussed more in general than directly to MH orgs. LGBTQ/money and MH discussed more directly to MH orgs
(relatively). Autism discussed more to MH orgs than by MH orgs. Alcohol discussed more by MH orgs than to MH orgs.
46. Christmas
Due to the report covering December, Christmas was
the most common term. Lots of people talked about
feeling depressed and anxious at Christmas.
In particular social anxiety and depression were
discussed.
The most retweeted tweet was the same light hearted
Christmas poem about homework causing anxiety,
which drove most of the key terms around Christmas.
47. Discussions about Christmas and mental
health
Many of these terms are driven by retweets of the one
homework related poem.
48. Discussions about Christmas and mental
health
The top tweets about Christmas included the same two top tweets
about anxiety. After those, top tweets were:
http://twitter.com/NHSChoices/statuses/417636775805210624
http://twitter.com/StanCollymore/statuses/413628066720935936
50. Stress
Stress was often discussed alongside depression and
anxiety.
Approximately a third of mental health discussions
which mentioned stress were from âfactâ type accounts,
or retweets of their tweets.
52. Tweets with the most impact about stress
As with depression and insomnia, the top tweets by impact score
were also all by @Fact and @FactsInYourFace. After âfactâ accounts,
top tweets were:
http://twitter.com/MindCharity/statuses/410441393497448448
http://twitter.com/MindCharity/statuses/410362053384478720
54. Alcohol
Discussions mentioning alcohol abuse and alcoholism were mainly
serious, with a lot of discussion about a news story that charities expect
an increase in alcohol abuse.
Domestic abuse and substance misuse also were discussed alongside
alcohol.
There were however quite a few sarcastic comments about Christmas
drinking which used terms such as âalcoholicâ as a joke.
There were signiïŹcantly more discussions of alcohol abuse from the
audience than to or from mental health organisations.
Note that discussions of alcoholism were included in the research
without the need to mention additional mental health issues.
56. Tweets with the most impact about alcohol
and mental health
The top tweet was another from @Fact, after which:
http://twitter.com/alaindebotton/statuses/413297126840340482
http://twitter.com/guardian/statuses/411714872317980672
58. Food and mental health
Most of the tweets about food and mental health
were retweets of âfactâ account tweets.
Many of the tweets were about types of food
which improved mental health conditions such as
depression e.g. bananas.
Also some commentary around people eating
more when they are depressed.
60. Tweets with the most impact about food and
mental health
The top tweets were more from âfactâ accounts, after which:
http://twitter.com/hexachordal/statuses/413768624596209664
http://twitter.com/laurenofthesea/statuses/415844414486216704
62. Money
Discussions about money when not directed to or from
a mental health organisation were commonly about
wanting the Government to spend more money on
mental health services.
When in relation to a mental health organisation,
discussions around money were usually about
fundraising or donating to the charity.
64. Tweets with the most impact about money
and mental health
(Discussion of âpovertyâ was categorised as âmoneyâ)
http://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/statuses/414058930449698816
http://twitter.com/FactsInYourFace/statuses/414359704367030273
66. Gender considerations
Gender is applied based on the assumed gender of a personâs
name.
Where gender is not obvious from the name, the mention is not
assigned as any gender.
This means itâs possible that more mentions might be
categorised as male or female depending on how obviously
gendered the names are. e.g. ten mentions by âAlexâ and three
mentions by âSophieâ would show as 100% female, even if the
Alex mentions were in fact all male.
As such, these results should be treated with caution. What is
interesting though, is how diïŹerent issues vary - that diïŹerence
is unlikely to be due to how gendered the names are, so more
likely to show real gender diïŹerences in discussion around a
topic.
68. Gender per issue
Schizophrenia was discussed more by men; could this have been driven by the news agenda at the
time? (The Mandela interpreter story)
Anxiety, eating disorders and panic in particular were discussed more by women, but all other topics
and overall discussion was by more women than men.
Do these correlate with the diïŹerent experiences or diagnoses of men/women with diïŹerent mental
health issues?
69. Gender per other topic discussed in relation
to mental health
All
Autism, race, alcohol, homelessness, bullying all discussed more by
men. Food, LGBTQ, abuse/assault, money, stress all discussed more by
women. Note logarithmic scale.
70. Gender and discussion of self or other
All
We looked at whether people talked about themselves or others the
most when talking about mental health. Comments such as âI amâ or âI
feelâ were categorised as âselfâ and comments such as âshe isâ, âhe isâ,
âyou areâ were categorised as âotherâ.
All
All discussions were more
likely to come from women,
but discussions of âselfâ were
particularly more likely to
come from women than
men.
Do women ïŹnd it easier to
disclose their own
experiences/feelings?
71. Gender and original tweets vs retweets
All
We looked at whether people created original tweets, or retweeted
other peopleâs. Of all the tweets we analysed, 60% were original
tweets and 40% were retweets. Whilst women tweeted and retweeted
more than men, both tweeted or retweeted at similar proportions.
All
73. Demographics (beta) considerations
This data is based on key words in biographies, and is in
âbetaâ mode in Brandwatch at the moment.
As such should be treated with caution.
Mental health organisation tweets have been removed.
This data would be more useful when compared to general
Twitter demographics.
77. Query considerations
Keywords were sourced from this page on Wikipedia: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mental_disorders
Some words in the list were removed as they were
highlighted by professionals as not being mental health
issues e.g. Alzheimerâs.
However, it is likely that some other words remaining in the
query are not professionally considered to be mental health
issues. As we are not mental health professionals, we have,
where not advised otherwise, kept the large list from the
Wikipedia page, rather than risk making incorrect
judgements of our own.
The report could be improved through partnership with a
mental health organisation to validate the search terms.
78. Appendix: mental health query
site:"twitter.com" AND
country:uk AND
("mental health" OR
"Adjustment disorder" OR
((Adolescent OR adult OR childhood) NEAR/5
"antisocial behavior") OR
"cognitive decline" OR
Agoraphobia OR
((Alcohol OR Barbiturate OR Benzodiazepine
OR cannabis OR cocaine) NEAR/20
(abuse OR dependence OR withdrawal OR
misuse OR addiction)) OR
alcoholism OR
"Amnestic disorder" OR
"Amphetamine dependence" OR
"Amphetamine withdrawal psychosis" OR
Anorexia OR
amnesia OR
"personality disorder" OR
Anxiety OR
"Anxiolytic-related" OR
"Attention deïŹcit" OR
(raw:ADD AND (attention OR deïŹcit)) OR
hyperactivity OR
Autophagia OR
Bibliomania OR
"eating disorder" OR
Bipolar OR
"Body dysmorphic" OR
"Borderline intellectual functioning" OR
"Borderline personality" OR
psychotic OR
Bulimia OR
"CaïŹeine-related disorder" OR
Claustrophobia OR
"Catatonic disorder" OR
schizophrenia OR
"sleep disorder" OR
"Cognitive disorder" OR
"Communication disorder" OR
"Conduct disorder" OR
"Cotard delusion" OR
Cyclothymia OR
"Delirium tremens" OR
"Depersonalization disorder" OR
"Depressive disorder" OR
Depression OR depressed OR
"Derealization disorder" OR
Desynchronosis OR
"Developmental coordination disorder" OR
"Diogenes Syndrome" OR
Dispareunia OR
"Dissociative identity disorder" OR
Dysthymia OR
EDNOS OR
Encopresis OR
"Ekbom's Syndrome" OR
"Delusional Parasitosis" OR
Enuresis OR
Erotomania OR
Exhibitionism OR
"Factitious disorder" OR
"Fregoli delusion" OR
Frotteurism OR
"Fugue State" OR
"Ganser syndrome" OR
"General adaptation syndrome" OR
"Grandiose delusions" OR
"Hallucinogen-related disorder" OR
"Hallucinogen persisting perception" OR
"Histrionic personality" OR
"Hypomanic episode" OR
Hypochondriasis OR
Hypochondria OR
"Impulse control disorder" OR
"Inhalant abuse" OR
Insomnia OR
"Intellectual disability" OR
"Intermittent explosive disorder"
Kleptomania OR
"KorsakoïŹ's syndrome" OR
"Lacunar amnesia" OR
"Male erectile disorder" OR
Malingering OR
"Manic episode" OR
"Mathematics disorder" OR
"Medication-related disorder" OR
Melancholia OR
Misophonia OR
"Mood disorder" OR
"Mood episode" OR
"Morbid jealousy" OR
"Munchausen's syndrome" OR
Narcissistic OR
"Neglect of child" OR
"Neuroleptic-related disorder" OR
"Nicotine withdrawal" OR
"Night eating syndrome" OR
"Nightmare disorder" OR
"Obsessive-compulsive" OR OCD OR
Oneirophrenia OR
"Opioid dependence" OR
"Opioid-related disorder" OR
"Oppositional deïŹant disorder" OR
"Pain disorder" OR
"Panic disorder" OR "panic attack" OR
(Paranoia NOT (game OR playing)) OR
Parasomnia OR
"Parkinson's Disease" OR
"Partner relational problem" OR
"Pathological gambling" OR
Perfectionism OR
"Persecutory delusion" OR
"Pervasive developmental disorder" OR
PDD OR
Phencyclidine OR
"Phobic disorder" OR
"Phonological disorder" OR
"Physical abuse" OR
Pica OR
"Polysubstance-related disorder" OR
"Post-traumatic embitterment" OR
PTED OR
"Posttraumatic stress" OR
PTSD OR
"Primary hypersomnia" OR
"Primary insomnia" OR
"Psychological factor" OR
Psychotic OR
Pyromania OR
"Reactive attachment" OR
"Reading disorder" OR
"Recurrent brief depression" OR
"Relational disorder" OR
senile OR senility OR
schizophrenia OR
"Rett's disorder" OR
"Rumination syndrome" OR
SchizoaïŹective OR
Schizoid OR
Schizophrenia OR
Schizophreniform OR
Schizotypal OR
"Seasonal aïŹective disorder" OR
((Sedative OR hypnotic OR
anxiolytic)
NEAR/10 "related disorder") OR
"Selective mutism" OR
"Severe mental retardation" OR
"Sleep disorder" OR
"Sleep terror" OR
Sleepwalking OR
"Social phobia" OR
Somatization OR
Somatoform OR
"SpeciïŹc phobia" OR
"Stendhal syndrome" OR
"Stereotypic movement disorder" OR
Stuttering OR
"Substance-related disorder" OR
"Tardive dyskinesia" OR
Tourette OR
Tourettes OR
Trichotillomania)
79. Appendix: to or by mental health orgs query
site:"twitter.com"
AND (
author: (
timetotalk OR
mindcharity OR
timetochange OR
youngmindsuk OR
rethink_
depressionall OR
starwards OR
charitysane OR
nsunnews OR
mindfulluk OR
beated OR
micprisons OR
bwdmind OR
ls_mind OR
bristolmind OR
cardiïŹ_mind OR
ulverstonmind OR
andovermind OR
mmic_ OR
manchestermind OR
leedsmind OR
mindwestsussex OR
kaleidoscope_pg OR
nottsmind OR
sunderlandmind OR
mindincroydon OR
mborostcktnmind OR
pfmind OR
yaspproject OR
suïŹolkmind OR
hf_mind OR
midessexmind OR
tynesidemind OR
rb_mind OR
washingtonmind OR
ïŹintshiremind OR
welmind1 OR
mindbrighton OR
lancsmind OR
inworksupport OR
mindinharingey OR
stockportmind OR
mindincambs OR
togmind OR
rochdalemind OR
mindinenïŹeld OR
telfordmind OR
jemfmurphy OR
voicecollective OR
shorpshiremind OR
wboroughmind OR
westleicsmind OR
mattsolentmind OR
colchestermind OR
southendmind OR
theyorkmind OR
minortranx OR
restormelmind OR
mindhey OR
matvmind OR
west_essex_mind OR
oxfordshiremind OR
chmind OR
swanseamind OR
emergenceplus OR
mental_healthy OR
endthestigma OR
mhf_tweets OR
ontheborderline OR
nimhgov OR
mentalhealth_uk OR
togetheruk OR
anxietyuk OR
rcpsych) OR
timetotalk OR
mindcharity OR
timetochange OR
youngmindsuk OR
raw:@rethink_ OR raw:@ReThink_ OR
raw:@Rethink_ OR
depressionall OR
starwards OR
charitysane OR
nsunnews OR
mindfulluk OR
(raw:@beatED OR raw:@beated OR
raw:@BEATED OR raw:@Beated) OR
micprisons OR
bwdmind OR
ls_mind OR
bristolmind OR
cardiïŹ_mind OR
ulverstonmind OR
andovermind OR
mmic_ OR
manchestermind OR
leedsmind OR
mindwestsussex OR
kaleidoscope_pg OR
nottsmind OR
sunderlandmind OR
mindincroydon OR
mborostcktnmind OR
pfmind OR
yaspproject OR
suïŹolkmind OR
hf_mind OR
midessexmind OR
tynesidemind OR
rb_mind OR
washingtonmind OR
ïŹintshiremind OR
welmind1 OR
mindbrighton OR
lancsmind OR
inworksupport OR
mindinharingey OR
stockportmind OR
mindincambs OR
togmind OR
rochdalemind OR
mindinenïŹeld OR
telfordmind OR
jemfmurphy OR
voicecollective OR
shorpshiremind OR
wboroughmind OR
westleicsmind OR
mattsolentmind OR
colchestermind OR
southendmind OR
theyorkmind OR
minortranx OR
restormelmind OR
mindhey OR
matvmind OR
west_essex_mind OR
oxfordshiremind OR
chmind OR
swanseamind OR
emergenceplus OR
mental_healthy OR
endthestigma OR
mhf_tweets OR
ontheborderline OR
nimhgov OR
mentalhealth_uk OR
togetheruk OR
anxietyuk OR
rcpsych)