Department of Software and Information Systems, College of Computing and Informatics, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2022 Jul 20;24(7):e15055. doi: 10.2196/15055.
Obesity is one of the greatest modern public health problems, due to the associated health and economic consequences. Decreased physical activity is one of the main societal changes driving the current obesity pandemic.
Our goals are to fill a gap in the literature and study whether users organically utilize a social media platform, Twitter, for providing motivation. We examine the topics of messages and social network structures on Twitter. 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.
We examined motivational messages related to physical activity on Twitter. First, we collected tweets related to physical activity. Second, we analyzed them using (1) a lexicon-based approach to extract and characterize motivation-related tweets, (2) a thematic analysis to examine common themes in retweets, and (3) topic models to understand prevalent factors concerning motivation and physical activity on Twitter. Third, we created 2 social networks to investigate organically arising peer-support network structures for sustaining physical activity and to form a deeper understanding of the feasibility of these networks in a real-world context.
We collected over 1.5 million physical activity-related tweets posted from August 30 to November 6, 2018. A relatively small percentage of the tweets mentioned the term motivation; many of these were made on Mondays or during morning or late morning hours. The analysis of retweets showed that the following three themes were commonly conveyed on the platform: (1) using a number of different types of motivation (self, process, consolation, mental, or quotes), (2) promoting individuals or groups, and (3) sharing or requesting information. Topic models revealed that many of these users were weightlifters or people trying to lose weight. Twitter users also naturally forged relations, even though 98.12% (2824/2878) of these users were in different physical locations.
This study fills a knowledge gap on how individuals organically use social media to encourage and sustain physical activity. Elements related to peer support are found in the organic use of social media. Our findings suggest that geographical location is less important for providing peer support as long as the support provides motivation, despite users having few factors in common (eg, the weather) affecting their physical activity. This presents a unique opportunity to identify successful motivation-providing peer support groups in a large user base. However, further research on the effects in a real-world context, as well as additional design and usability features for improving user engagement, are warranted to develop a successful intervention counteracting the current obesity pandemic. This is especially important for young adults, the main user group for social media, as they develop lasting health-related behaviors.
肥胖是现代最大的公共卫生问题之一，因为它会带来健康和经济方面的后果。体力活动减少是导致当前肥胖流行的主要社会变化之一。
我们的目标是填补文献中的空白，并研究用户是否会自然地利用社交媒体平台 Twitter 来提供动力。我们检查了 Twitter 上的信息主题和社交网络结构。我们讨论了社交媒体提供同伴支持的潜力，然后从中汲取了一些见解，为长期与健康相关的行为改变干预措施的开发提供信息。
我们检查了 Twitter 上与体力活动相关的激励信息。首先，我们收集了与体力活动相关的推文。其次，我们使用了以下方法对这些推文进行了分析：（1）基于词汇的方法，用于提取和描述与激励相关的推文；（2）主题分析，用于检查转发中的常见主题；（3）主题模型，用于了解与 Twitter 上的激励和体力活动相关的普遍因素。第三，我们创建了 2 个社交网络，以调查自然产生的维持体力活动的同伴支持网络结构，并深入了解这些网络在真实环境中的可行性。
我们收集了 2018 年 8 月 30 日至 11 月 6 日期间与 150 多万条体力活动相关的推文。提到“动机”一词的推文比例相对较小；其中许多推文是在周一或早上或上午晚些时候发布的。对转发的分析表明，该平台上通常传达了以下三个主题：（1）使用多种不同类型的激励（自我激励、过程激励、安慰激励、心理激励或引语）；（2）推广个人或团体；（3）分享或请求信息。主题模型显示，这些用户中有很多人是举重运动员或试图减肥的人。Twitter 用户还自然地建立了关系，尽管 98.12%（2824/2878）的用户位于不同的地理位置。
本研究填补了关于个人如何利用社交媒体来鼓励和维持体力活动的知识空白。在社交媒体的自然使用中发现了与同伴支持相关的元素。我们的研究结果表明，只要支持提供动力，地理位置对于提供同伴支持就不那么重要，尽管用户之间几乎没有共同的因素（例如天气）影响他们的体力活动。这为在大型用户群中识别成功的提供激励的同伴支持群体提供了一个独特的机会。然而，为了开发一种成功的干预措施来对抗当前的肥胖流行，还需要对现实世界环境中的效果以及提高用户参与度的其他设计和可用性功能进行进一步的研究。对于社交媒体的主要用户群体——年轻人来说，这一点尤为重要，因为他们正在养成持久的与健康相关的行为。
