[Oxford University Press] EXAMINING PSYCHOSIS IN SOCIAL MEDIA: THE TARGETED INDIVIDUALS MOVEMENT AND THE POTENTIAL OF PATHOLOGICAL ECHO-CHAMBERS
Abstract
Background
“Targeted Individuals” (TI) have gained prominence as a social media-fed movement whose members feel persecuted by governments and private actors. TI’s have embraced social media platforms such as Facebook to validate views that, from a psychiatric perspective, appear to resemble those of psychosis patients, such as being subject to organized observation, and thought extraction and insertion using advanced technologies. Postings to TI groups reflect the pervasive betrayal, isolation, suffering and stress associated with these beliefs. However, much remains unknown about this emergent internet phenomenon. Do such groups contribute to psychopathology through “echo chamber” and societal reinforcement effects, or conversely, do groups of such like-minded individuals provide nurturing and a sense of belonginess?
Methods
We used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) textual coding on a large database of Facebook group posts. These posts included i) TI social media groups and two control categories: ii) conspiracy theory groups (a control for individual persecution), and iii) political groups (a general social media control). These social media group were divided within category into exploratory and confirmatory samples that were well-matched across categories on numbers of members, posts, length of posts and length of individual participation. Exploratory LIWC analyses used MANOVA’s within general linguistic categories and focused on textually rich postings and active participants. Confirmatory analyses examined only those linguistic categories found to be consistently different in the TI group relative to the two others. Finally, we used Generalized Linear Mixed Models to examine longitudinal change in variables that were consistently unusual.
Results
We replicated previous findings of linguistic analyses in people with schizophrenia, showing that TI group members used more first-person singular pronouns and expressed more negative emotions. However, contrary to people with schizophrenia, TI group members use more words per sentences compared to our other Facebook group users. In addition, TI group members also used more perceptual words and used body and health words more commonly. TI posts were also more self-focused and showed cognitive word use abnormalities. Examining the subset of abnormal textual variables longitudinally showed that the most abnormal postings that were observed at the outset persisted overtime without necessarily becoming more or less pronounced.
Discussion
This study examined the potential for social media to act as a contagion or an echo chamber for distressing ideas associated with being observed and manipulated by a malevolent government or society. While the current findings suggested a number of ways in which TI group members writings are similar to patients with psychosis there was not strong evidence that continued involved either increased or decreased individuals’ tendencies to make such linguistic utterances over time. This work suggests the importance of continuing to work to understand this population, and perhaps speaks to the possibility of engaging TI group members in further research.
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