Cultural Differences in Tweeting about Drinking Across the US.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Computational Social Science
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Excessive alcohol consumption in the US results in significant mortality and economic burden.
• Previous research indicates general social media engagement patterns can signal excessive alcohol use.
• The specific linguistic variations and cultural contexts of drinking-related language on social media remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize regional and cultural variations in drinking-specific language on Twitter within the US.
• To correlate linguistic markers of excessive alcohol use on Twitter with self-reported consumption data.
• To identify sociocultural determinants of excessive alcohol use through social media analysis.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 38 billion public tweets, focusing on those mentioning "drunk".
• Identification and clustering of distinctive drinking-related words and phrases.
• Correlation of geolocated "drunk" tweets with county- and state-level excessive alcohol consumption data (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System).
• Examination of linguistic markers across different cultural communities (American Community Project).

Main Results:

• A significant correlation was found between "drunk" tweet frequency and excessive alcohol consumption at both county (r=0.26) and state (r=0.45) levels.
• Topic analysis revealed excessive alcohol use is associated with discussions of drinking with friends, family, and driving under the influence.
• Cultural analysis identified distinct patterns: religious communities showed high anti-drunk driving mentions, Hispanic communities discussed family drinking, and college towns focused on sexual behavior.

Conclusions:

• Twitter data can effectively reveal the specific sociocultural contexts of excessive alcohol use across diverse US regions and communities.
• Findings highlight the potential for social media analytics to inform targeted public health interventions for alcohol abuse.
• Understanding cultural determinants of substance abuse through social media provides valuable insights for public health strategies.