How Can Social Intelligence Analysis of Tweets From the Gulf Cooperation Council Contribute to Mapping Loneliness and Creating a Global Loneliness Map?

Background

Loneliness is a complex emotion with potential associations with digital technology and social media usage. Understanding this association can help identify ways to leverage technology to reduce the negative impact of loneliness. This study aims to examine the relationship between digital technology use and loneliness by conducting a scoping review and analysing tweets from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to explore common emotions and themes.

Objective

The purpose of this study is to explore the emotions associated with loneliness by analysing people’s tweets, to gain a better understanding of loneliness and find ways to reduce it. It seeks to compare findings from the scoping review and the GCC tweet analysis, with the ultimate goal of creating a global loneliness map.

Methods

A scoping review was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) process to analyze 33 studies published between 2015 and 2023. For the empirical study, 40,000 tweets from the GCC, retrieved in five different languages, were subjected to sentiment analysis using the Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoning (VADER).

Results

From the tweet analysis, word clouds were generated to visualize the topics associated with positive and negative sentiment categories. Tweets with negative sentiment were further analyzed to identify correlations between loneliness and socioeconomic and emotional themes. These emotions and themes were compared to the themes identified using the scoping review, and some of the common emotions include anxiety, depression, social connectedness, quality of life, and insomnia.

Conclusion

People use technology and social media to connect with others, and by analysing these types of interactions, such as tweets, we identify certain emotions that allow us to understand loneliness better. These results provide a foundation for the development of a global loneliness map, enabling stakeholders to better understand and address this complex issue and to allocate resources efficiently. This research offers a valuable contribution to the existing literature on loneliness, highlighting the need for further exploration of this topic in various contexts and regions.