Reddit and TikTok - with the help of AI - are reshaping how researchers understand substance use |
When you think of tools for studying substance use and addiction, a social media site like Reddit, TikTok or YouTube probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the stories shared on social media platforms are offering unprecedented insights into the world of substance use.
In the past, researchers studying peoples’ experiences with addiction relied mostly on clinical observations and self-reported surveys. But only about 5% of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder seek formal treatment. They are only a small sliver of the population who have a substance use disorder – and until recently, there has been no straightforward way to capture the experiences of the other 95%.
Today, millions of people openly discuss their experiences with drugs online, creating a vast collection of raw narratives about drug use. As a doctoral student in information science with a background in public health, I use this material to better understand how people who use drugs describe their lives and make sense of their experiences, especially when it comes to stigma.
These online conversations are reshaping how researchers think about substance use, addiction and recovery. Advances in artificial intelligence are helping make sense of these conversations at a scale that wasn’t possible before.
The vast majority of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder address the issue informally – seeking support from their community, friends or family, self-medicating or doing nothing at all. But some choose to post about their drug use in dedicated online communities, such as group forums, often with a level of candor that would be difficult to capture in clinical interviews.
Their social media posts offer a window into real-time, unscripted conversations about substance use. For example, Reddit, which........