Monitoring Worldwide Trends of Expressed Depression on Twitter before and after COVID-19 Vaccine Releases

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, the global community has been living in fear, stress, and isolation. The COVID-19 vaccine might provide a solution to the ongoing global crisis. This study seeks to monitor the trends of depression that have been discussed on Twitter before and after the COVID-19 vaccine was released and explores whether such differences were universal or geographical. Specifically, this paper investigates the variations in sentiment in different geographic regions and the change of sentiments before and after the vaccine release. We collect tweets containing keywords "COVID-19" and “depression” and rely on releasing date of the COVID-19 vaccine as a division point. The experiment results reveal that topics related to depression varied significantly across different regions before and after the COVID-19 vaccine was released. For example, tweets posted in America are focused on social lockdown and infection with COVID-19 when referring to depression. In contrast, tweets from European countries discuss more typical depression symptoms and Brexit. The tweets posted in Asian, African, and Oceanian contain more discussions on stress. Our analysis further indicates that Asian users’ stress is mainly from the study while Oceanian and African users' stress is primarily from family. Another interesting finding in our paper is that tweets show a common desire for normal social activities after the vaccine release, regardless of geographical locations.