JMIR infodemiology最新文献

{"title":"Online Information-Seeking Behavior Regarding Vitreous Floaters in the United States: Google Trends Analysis.","authors":"Thanaphat Seeboonruang, Qais A Dihan, Jamie L Surgent-Nahay, Muhammad Z Chauhan, Ahmed F Shakarchi, Ahmed B Sallam","doi":"10.2196/94821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2196/94821","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Vitreous floaters are a prevalent phenomenon, with some patients experiencing persistent symptoms that substantially degrade their vision. Public interest and information-seeking behavior regarding vitreous surgery are challenging to quantify using claims alone.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>The aim of this study is to evaluate temporal and geographic patterns of public interest in vitreous floaters and related interventions in the United States and to contextualize this interest relative to retina specialist availability.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this retrospective observational study, we queried Google Trends for search terms originating in the United States from 2008 to 2025. We extracted the relative search volume (RSV) using a composite of terms combined with the Google Trends \"+\" operator. State-level counts of vitreoretinal surgeons from the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) database were used to calculate surgeon density per 100,000 population. We calculated a search-to-surgeon index (SSI) as the ratio of state-level RSV to retina surgeon density to serve as an exploratory metric of public interest relative to specialist availability. We evaluated associations using the Mann-Kendall trend test, Sen slope, and Spearman correlation.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>From 2008 to 2025, nonsurgical RSV increased by 138%, demonstrating a significant temporal increasing trend (<i>τ</i>=0.600; <i>P</i><.001). States with a higher proportion of residents aged 40 years or older demonstrated higher RSV (ρ=0.51; <i>P</i><.01). The median SSI was 123 (IQR 100-127; range 48-311). Surgical RSV increased by 133% (<i>τ</i>=0.443; <i>P</i><.001). The median surgical SSI was 133 (IQR 107-164; range 34-341).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This analysis demonstrates substantial geographic variability in public interest in vitreous floaters across the United States. Integrating Google Trends data with surgeon distribution provides an exploratory framework for evaluating relative interest in vitreoretinal care, though it does not directly measure clinical demand.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e94821"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13661035/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149186674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"YouTube Videos as Educational Resources for Seizure Clusters and Treatment Options: Cross-Sectional Observational Study.","authors":"Taylor S Elliott, Andrew J Gienapp, James W Wheless","doi":"10.2196/98768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2196/98768","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Patients with seizure clusters and their families often use YouTube videos as resources for information about the illness and how to use concomitant rescue medications; however, many videos include misinformation or incorrect information that could potentially cause harm.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aims to examine YouTube videos intended as educational and instructional resources for seizure clusters and treatment options posted since the approval of intranasal benzodiazepine rescue medications in 2019 and to assess their accuracy and quality using a 3-item rating scale.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We searched YouTube for 10 specific terms related to seizure clusters and treatment options and analyzed videos from the first 20 results for each to mimic internet user behavior when choosing results with search engines. Videos were rated on 3 criteria: accurate seizure cluster definition, appropriate US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatment recommendation, and correct visual demonstration of rescue medication use. A single author rated the videos based on the presence of specific subcriteria of all 3 primary criteria in each video. Score assignment was based on the number of present subcriteria.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Seizure clusters and trade names generated the highest number of videos meeting criteria; other search terms, including nonproprietary names, garnered <8 videos each. Only 19.5% (n=39) of the 200 collected videos provided accurate descriptions of seizure clusters, while 61.0% (n=122) offered no definition, 37.0% (n=74) recommended at least 1 FDA-approved rescue medication, and 37.5% (n=75) offered no rescue therapy at all; 26.5% (n=53) provided a full demonstration of rescue medicine, while 62.5% (n=125) did not. Only 4.5% (n=9) of videos included all subcriteria of the 3 primary criteria. Search results for specific trade names yielded more results, while less specific terminology returned unrelated or unhelpful videos.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Accurate YouTube videos of seizure cluster management are limited and represent a knowledge gap that should be addressed to avoid patient harm. To facilitate better navigation of educational and instructional resources, clinicians should have a ready list of videos available to give to patients or provide a list of search terms that are known to produce accurate results to facilitate better searches. Reputable health care sources could also produce brief, helpful videos of each rescue therapy with search terms that direct patients to their content.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e98768"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13627083/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Characterizing Online Opinion on Vaping and E-Cigarettes in X (Formerly Twitter) Discourse in Singapore: Infodemiology Study.","authors":"Charles Alba","doi":"10.2196/103561","DOIUrl":"10.2196/103561","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As Singapore enforces a comprehensive e-cigarette prohibition, this infodemiology analysis of vaping-related X (formerly Twitter) discourse reveals predominantly neutral, event-driven discussions across 18 topics covering legislation and policy, illicit consumption, illicit sales and smuggling, and health risks, offering insights to inform vaping control strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e103561"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13608228/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149042475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shifting Public Discourse on Life-Sustaining Treatment in South Korea From 2014 to 2025: Longitudinal Social Media Analysis.","authors":"Miryoung Kim, Hae Sun Suh","doi":"10.2196/95918","DOIUrl":"10.2196/95918","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background: &lt;/strong&gt;Public discourse plays an important role in shaping how end-of-life care and medical decision-making are understood within society. In South Korea, the implementation of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act in 2018 established a legal framework for withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment for patients at the end of life. However, relatively little is known about how public discourse surrounding life-sustaining treatment has evolved over time, particularly before and after the act's implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objective: &lt;/strong&gt;This study aimed to examine how online discourse related to life-sustaining treatment in South Korea evolved using large-scale social media data by identifying dominant themes, tracing their temporal changes from 2014 to 2025, and assessing shifts in sentiment before and after the act.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods: &lt;/strong&gt;A total of 16,191 text documents, comprising posts from Naver blogs, Naver cafes, and comments from YouTube, were collected using keywords related to life-sustaining treatment and end-of-life decision-making. Text was preprocessed using the Kiwi tokenizer for Korean morphological analysis, and latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling was applied to extract underlying themes. A 6-topic solution was selected based on topic coherence and interpretability. Temporal changes in topic prevalence were examined across the study period, and topic distributions were compared between the prelaw (2014-2017) and postlaw (2018-2025) periods. Sentiment analysis was conducted using the Kunsan National University Korean sentiment lexicon to classify documents into positive, neutral, and negative categories. A study-defined descriptive net sentiment change index was calculated to summarize changes in positive and negative sentiment following policy implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;Six major themes were identified: death with dignity, hospice and palliative care, aging and social care, end-of-life decision-making, euthanasia debate, and withdrawal of treatment. Discourse volume increased more than 17-fold over the study period. Prior to 2018, discussions were dominated by end-of-life decision-making (255/573, 44.5%) and withdrawal of treatment (178/573, 31.1%). Around the time of policy implementation, ethical and legal debates became more prominent. In subsequent years, discourse increasingly reflected care-oriented perspectives, including hospice and palliative care and aging and social care. Sentiment improved most markedly for end-of-life decision-making and hospice and palliative care following the act, whereas aging and social care showed minimal change, and death with dignity exhibited a decline in net sentiment.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;Public discourse on life-sustaining treatment in South Korea evolved from a clinical focus to ethical debate and, more recently, to care-oriented perspectives. These changes were temporally associated with the","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e95918"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13600655/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149032078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social Media Constructions of Alcohol as Emotional Coping and Social Connection in Ghana: Qualitative Study.","authors":"Rachel GA Thompson, Evershed Kwasi Amuzu, Tricia Thompson, Mark Kwaku Gyasi, Orlando Harris, Glenn-Milo Santos, Jerry John Ouner","doi":"10.2196/102546","DOIUrl":"10.2196/102546","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Alcohol is a leading contributor to disease and injury worldwide; yet, it remains embedded in cultural practices associated with pleasure, social connection, and emotional relief. While global research has documented both the epidemiological burden and the social meanings of drinking, little is known about how alcohol-related meanings are circulated and normalized within African social media environments.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study explores how alcohol is represented in Ghanaian social media discourse, with particular attention to emotional coping, social interaction, and everyday well-being.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study draws on a qualitative dataset of publicly available user-generated content (N=189) from widely used social media platforms, Facebook and TikTok. It uses discourse analysis within a social constructionist framework, thereby treating language as a site where alcohol-related meanings are produced, negotiated, and circulated on online platforms.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Alcohol was routinely constructed as a resource for coping with stress, heartbreak, and economic strain, while also functioning as a facilitator of friendship, leisure, and communal belonging. Alcohol was further normalized as part of everyday mood regulation, with users presenting drinking as a means of enhancing relaxation, pleasure, and bodily comfort. A broader commercial-lay hybrid discourse was identified, in which promotional messaging, therapeutic claims, and peer communication became increasingly intertwined. Through these discourses, alcohol was associated with vitality, emotional restoration, and well-being.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>By situating these constructions within Ghana's broader cultural and digital context, the study demonstrates how global narratives of drinking for self-care and leisure are adapted and recirculated through local social media practices. The study contributes one of the first qualitative analyses of alcohol-related social media discourse in West Africa and highlights the importance of public health communication strategies that engage with culturally meaningful and digitally circulating narratives rather than relying solely on risk-based messaging.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e102546"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13628042/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148983048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Characterizing Family Abuse in Suicidal Ideation Posts on Reddit: Large Language Model-Assisted Content Analysis.","authors":"Salim Sazzed","doi":"10.2196/90340","DOIUrl":"10.2196/90340","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Suicidal ideation is a significant global public health concern, with family abuse recognized as a key risk factor. Although clinical studies have examined the link between family abuse and mental health, its representation in social media discussions-particularly in relation to suicidal ideation-remains largely unexplored.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aimed to examine how family abuse manifests in suicidal ideation narratives on social media, focusing on the demographic characteristics of individuals reporting abuse, the types of abuse described, and relationships to perpetrators.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We analyzed 27,434 posts from the Reddit SuicideWatch forum to identify posts in which suicidal ideation and family abuse co-occurred. Using a combination of manual review, large language model-assisted keyword expansion, natural language processing-based information extraction, and human validation, we examined self-disclosed age and gender among Reddit users who reported family abuse in suicidal ideation posts, along with abuse types and relationships to perpetrators.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among posts with self-reported age information, individuals aged 18 to 24 years accounted for the largest proportion (144/313, 46.0%). Among posts with self-reported gender information, men represented 57.3% (86/150). Physical abuse was the most frequently reported form of family abuse (683/975, 70.1%; 95% CI 67.18%-72.93%), followed by emotional or psychological abuse (350/975, 35.9%; 95% CI 32.89%-38.91%) and sexual abuse (296/975, 30.4%; 95% CI 27.47%-33.25%). The parent category was the most frequently identified perpetrator category (435/975, 44.6%; 95% CI: 41.52%-47.75%).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study enhances our understanding of how family abuse appears in social media posts involving suicidal ideation. The findings demonstrate the potential of computational social media analysis to support descriptive, hypothesis-generating research and inform the design of online support resources for family abuse-related suicidal distress.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e90340"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13620435/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148972652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Misinformation Through the Lens of Dutch News Media and Public Health Authorities: Content Analysis of Topics and Narratives Present in Pandemic-Related Misinformation During COVID-19.","authors":"David Blanco-Herrero, Bas van den Putte, Toni G L A van der Meer","doi":"10.2196/91743","DOIUrl":"10.2196/91743","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>One of the multiple challenges associated with misinformation is its risk of hindering public health efforts during a health crisis. Misinformation can cover a diversity of thematic topics and is usually spread using a series of nontopic-specific recurring narrative structures. Identifying these 2 misinformation features helps to understand underlying structures and patterns through which misleading information can take shape or be circulated.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>The goal of the study is to obtain a complete overview of the topics and narratives of pandemic-related misinformation cases addressed by 2 key information providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: news media and public health authorities.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 698 news articles and 1333 tweets published between January 2020 and May 2023.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The study revealed that vaccine-related misinformation, both in terms of topics and narratives, was the most frequently addressed type of misinformation across both sources. The topics and narratives evolved along the pandemic, with the virus origin and danger being more predominant in the misinformation addressed in the early phases and the vaccines gaining presence around 2021.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In total, the study revealed the dominance of vaccine-related narratives as well as the change of misinformation features over time. The deeper understanding of misinformation topics and narratives can inform communication strategies to counter its effects, focusing on the appropriate topics and narrative structures in different moments.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e91743"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13544416/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148893071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Applying the Vertically Integrated Project Model to Youth-Inclusive Social Media Coding of Zyn-Related YouTube Shorts: Methodological Case Study.","authors":"Julia Pengyue Dou, Beth L Hoffman, Piper Narendorf, Tatiana Grinberg Limoncic, Grace Carver, Natalia Connor, Christine Larkin, Jaime E Sidani","doi":"10.2196/95363","DOIUrl":"10.2196/95363","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background: &lt;/strong&gt;The rapid evolution of the nicotine and tobacco product (NTP) marketplace continues to outpace existing research. Although adolescents are active participants on social media who both consume and generate content, this age group has rarely been included in analyses of NTP content, raising a methodological challenge for accurate interpretation and coding of youth-oriented NTP content. Most research examining oral nicotine product content online has focused on TikTok, despite YouTube's widespread adolescent use. One promising framework is the vertically integrated project (VIP) model. Situating content analysis within the VIP model suggests the methodological potential of age-diverse teams to capture nuances in social media data coding, reveal areas of interpretive divergence, and ultimately advance research methodologies in public health.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objective: &lt;/strong&gt;This study aimed to understand how perspectives across different age groups, academic levels, and lived experiences shape the interpretation of Zyn-related YouTube shorts by engaging high school (HS) students, undergraduate public health students, and faculty researchers in parallel coding.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods: &lt;/strong&gt;We manually collected 300 publicly available YouTube shorts containing #Zyn on September 18, 2024, as a methodological case example. Three coder pairs, including 2 HS students (GC and NC), 2 undergraduate students (PN and TGL), and 2 public health faculty members (BLH and JES), independently coded the same 50 videos per round across 6 iterative rounds (N=300). For each round, interrater reliability was assessed using Cohen κ and percent agreement as complementary indicators. After all coding rounds were completed, the full coding team participated in a debriefing session. The transcript was analyzed using a combined deductive-inductive thematic approach to contextualize reliability patterns and identify challenges and practical insights related to age-diverse collaborative coding within the VIP-informed model.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;Interrater reliability varied across 6 iterative rounds, with the undergraduate team showing the highest κ values in the final coding round (κ range: 0.40-0.63). Several constructs showed consistently high percent agreement but low and variable κ values, particularly within the HS team. For individual codes, mean κ values for male stereotype were higher for the undergraduate and faculty teams than for the HS team (0.56, 0.47, and 0.10, respectively). Debriefing findings indicated that disagreement reflected factors such as evolving code definitions, interpretive drift across rounds, and differences in cultural and experiential lenses. Coders noted that the codebook struggled to capture ambiguity in short-form content and that teams developed distinct heuristics for resolving uncertainty. Suggested improvements included rotating coding pairs and expanding codebook examples.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclu","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":"6 ","pages":"e95363"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13583466/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148882812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Characterizing Online Opinion on Vaping and E-Cigarettes in X (Formerly Twitter) Discourse in Singapore: Infodemiology Study.","authors":"Charles Alba","doi":"10.2196/103561","DOIUrl":"10.2196/103561","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Unstructured: </strong>As Singapore enforces a comprehensive e-cigarette prohibition, this infodemiology analysis of vaping-related X (formerly Twitter) discourse reveals predominantly neutral, event-driven discussions across 18 topics covering legislation and policy, illicit consumption, illicit sales and smuggling, and health risks, offering insights to inform vaping-control strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148868350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Emotional Expression and Mental Health Support in BTS Fandom Communities Using Natural Language Processing on YouTube Comments: Cross-Sectional Study.","authors":"Nari Yoo, Aaron H Rodwin, Michael Park, Sangpil Youm, Sou Hyun Jang","doi":"10.2196/74397","DOIUrl":"10.2196/74397","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background: &lt;/strong&gt;The global rise of K-pop has shaped youth culture and online communities, particularly through BTS, a South Korean boy band with an international fanbase known as ARMY (Adorable Representative MC for Youth). Music fandoms are increasingly engaging with digital platforms such as YouTube not only for entertainment but also as spaces for emotional expression and mutual support. Despite growing interest in the mental health potential of music-based coping strategies, limited research has examined how fandom cultures differentially express emotional needs and supportive interactions online.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objective: &lt;/strong&gt;This study investigates specific mental health language patterns and coping mechanisms expressed by BTS fans in online spaces, examining how different linguistic features (including self-referential language and emotional expression patterns) may reflect psychological states and mental health needs. We used YouTube comments from fan-curated \"sad\" or \"depression\" playlists of BTS. We further included YouTube comments from equivalent Taylor Swift playlists as a reference group.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods: &lt;/strong&gt;Using natural language processing and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2022 software, we analyzed a total of 13,224 YouTube comments: 11,772 comments on BTS \"sad playlist\" videos and 1452 comments on Taylor Swift equivalents. Statistical comparisons were conducted to evaluate differences in comment length, word count, pronoun use, and emotional valence. Representative comments were examined to contextualize the emotion classification results.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;BTS original comments were significantly longer (mean 253.38, SD 703.65 characters) and had higher word counts (mean 38.93, SD 88.54 words) than Taylor Swift original comments (length: mean 89.84, SD 330.96 characters; word count: mean 16.08, SD 64.78 words; P&lt;.001). BTS fans used more first-person singular pronouns (mean 10.24%, SD 9.57% vs mean 7.43%, SD 9.41%) and expressed greater sadness (1691/5341, 31.7% vs 75/452, 16.6%). In contrast, Taylor Swift fans exhibited higher admiration (86/452, 19% vs 429/5341, 8%). Among reply comments, BTS fans demonstrated more caring (242/1729, 14% vs 7/128, 5.5%), gratitude (294/1729, 17% vs 15/128, 11.7%), and optimism (162/1729, 9.4% vs 6/128, 4.7%). Linguistic analysis also revealed a broader international user base for BTS, including higher proportions of Spanish (719/11,772, 6.11%) and Portuguese (222/11,772, 1.89%) comments. Examination of comment content showed that fans used these spaces to disclose personal struggles, express gratitude for the community, and offer peer support, with many describing the fandom as a safe space for emotional expression they could not access elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;The findings show that comments on BTS fan playlists included more emotional disclosure and more supportive replies than those on the Taylor Swift comparison, consi","PeriodicalId":73554,"journal":{"name":"JMIR infodemiology","volume":" ","pages":"e74397"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13575550/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147446240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}