Pro-anorexia and social media

Luis Fernandez Luque (@luisluque), eHealth Researcher, Norut Tromsø (Norway)

Pro-anorexia

Anorexia has a huge impact in the health and quality of life of patients and relatives.

Pro-anorexia: anorexia as a lifestyle. Well-known problem for nearly a

decade. Watching pro-anorexia website can

affect the health of the viewers. 13% of female teenagers have reported

using pro-anorexia webs in a Belgium study

References available at: http://www.jmir.org/2013/2/e30/

Pro-Anorexia and Social Media

Pro-Anorexia in Norway

Misleading Health-Related Information Promoted Through Video-Based Social Media: Anorexia on YouTube

Syed-Abdul S, Fernandez-Luque L, Jian WS, Li YC, Crain S, Hsu MH, Wang YC, Khandregzen D, Chuluunbaatar E, Nguyen PA, Liou DM. Misleading

Health-Related Information Promoted Through Video-Based Social Media: Anorexia on YouTube. J Med Internet Res 2013;15(2):e30

Study goals

• YouTube is one of the most visited webpages worldwide

• No studies on the prevalence of pro-anorexia videos on YouTube.

• 26% of American teenagers have posted videos online.

Study Methods

• We extracted 7583 anorexia-related videos and analized 140 (most popular, random, etc.) and classified them in:– Informative videos– Pro-anorexia– Un-related

Pro-anorexia videos

Informative videos

Results I

• Around 1/3 of the videos were pro-anorexia, half informative and 20% unrelated.

• If extrapolated, we can expect more than 2.000 videos promoting anorexia in YouTube.

• Pro-anorexia videos had less views, but were more favorited (3x) and had more rating activity (2X).

Results II

• The top-20 pro-anorexia videos had 9.5 million views.

• We studied demographic information available in 15 videos. Minors were in the top-age group in 80% of them.

Conclusions

• There is a need for better tools to filter pro-anorexia content.

• Pro-anorexia videos are highly rated. • Pro-anorexia videos are being watch by minors

Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Recovery Photo Sharing: A Tale of Two Warring Tribes

Yom-Tov E, Fernandez-Luque L, Weber I, Crain SP Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Recovery Photo Sharing: A Tale of Two Warring Tribes J Med Internet Res

2012;14(6):e151

Study goal

• To study the social network dimanics of the pro-anorexia and pro-recovery communities in the photo-sharing social network Flickr.

• Previous studies only focused on pro-anorexia communities and not in the interaction.

Anorexia and Flickr

Methods

• We extracted information about 491 users both pro-anorexia and pro-recovery. These users had posted 242,710 photos.

• Social Network Analysis, Data Mining and other techniques were applied to understand better the dynamics.

Results I

• There are two clearly separated and inter-mindgle communities.

• Network graphs (blue=pro-recovery, red=pro-anorexia) based on (from top left, clickwise): contacts, favorites, tags, comments.

Results II - differences

• Pro-anorexia users post less photos of themselves.

• Pro-recovery are more active but publish about a wider set of topics.

• Pro-anorexia users are much likely to favorite a photo from an pro-anorexia user than by an pro-recovery.

• Pro-recovery users often try to engage pro-anorexia users by using the same keywords in their photos (e.g. pro-anorexia)

Results II - influences

• When a pro-recovery user commented on a photo of a pro-anorexia user, the pro-anorexia user was more likely to continue posting pro-anorexia photos.

• When a pro-anorexia user comments on a photo of a pro-recovery user, the pro-recovery user is more likely to stop posting pro-recovery photos.

• The influence of pro-anorexia users is higher than pro-recovery users.

Results II - Conclusions

• The pro-anorexia network dynamics are far more complex than expected.

• Social clues are crucial for filtering pro-anorexia content.

• Better understanding of network dynamics can help to design better public health interventions and avoid counter-effects.

Questions ?

Luis Fernandez Luque (luis.luque@norut.no)