The effect of emotion background on pathological internet users’ comments on online news: Evidence from online text analysis

Abstract

The increased use of Internet communication emphasizes the need to explore the characteristics of online comments, which help better understand their impact on individuals’ internal emotional states and how the emotional valence of online news impacts online commentaries among Pathological Internet Users (PIUs). Eighteen PIUs and 14 controls commented on online news of two types (positive and negative valence) under two separate elicited emotional states (positive and negative), with commentaries analyzed through TextMind. PIUs and Controls both used more positive words when exposed to positive versus negative news and more negative words when exposed to negative versus positive news regardless of elicited emotions. However, individuals with PIU used more positive words than controls. PIUs and Controls commented similarly under positive or negative emotion elicitation concerning casual, inclusive, and exclusive words. However, the use of discrepancy word varied due to group assignment and the emotion background. Controls used more discrepancy words when commenting on negative news while in a positive emotional state and commenting on positive news while in a negative emotional state, which does not hold for PIUs. The internal emotional state and emotional valence of online news affected the group differently, suggesting that though PIUs can get emotional catharsis on commenting activities, they lack the perceptual consistency of emotional background when conducting online activities and have lower cognitive complexity. This research demonstrates the utility of incorporating a new method for detecting individuals subject to PIU by applying text analysis to their online behavior.

A Study of Factors Influencing the Volume of Responses to Posts in Physician Online Community

“…Previously, Jiang et al showed that the use of perceptual words and health-related vocabulary in patients' texts in online health community can have an impact on the social support they receive [27]. Similar studies have shown that how words are used in textual representations is also important [28,29]. Therefore, this study takes into full consideration the characteristics of physician online communities and innovatively introduces several words commonly used in the medical field into post analysis.…”

The effect of childhood harshness and unpredictability on Internet addiction among college students: The mediating effect of self-control

“…The score of each item ranged from 1 to 5 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and a higher score shows a higher level of Internet addiction (α = 0.94). This scale has been widely used to assess participants' Internet addiction in China, such as studies by Leng et al [ 56 ] or Zhang et al [ 57 ], and the reliability (α = 0.90) and validity (χ 2 (169) = 570.132, χ 2 / df = 3.374, CFI = 0.940, RMSEA = 0.070, SRMR = 0.057) of the scale in the current study were also good.…”