Usage pattern and mental health analysis on Finnish speaking Twitter users

Abstract

Social media has been seen under negative light as it is correlated to mental health problems. However, it was also acknowledge as an alternative way to collect data and conduct studies and services on mental health. This study collected tweets from Twitter that contains certain keywords, deemed to be related to mental health issues in the Finnish language over the years 2020 and 2021. The tweets were then translated to sentimental gauges, negative, neutral, and positive, and analysed to find usage patterns of the users. The results showed some faint trends of the negative sentimental gauge following the Covid-19 trends and some evidence suggesting that the tweets, or the users by extension, are more likely to be negative toward the end of the week, as well as, later on in the day. The findings from this study are packaged with data volume, minority targeting, and study design limitation. From future studies perspective, this study left a lot of room for improvements as well as a tool for data collection to support in filling those gaps.