Does using Twitter have any effect on your heart health?

Many people and experts from National Institutes of Health (NIH) believe that Twitter affects the health of your heart. A three-year $668,000 federal grant was received by the University of Pennsylvania to study the correlation between Twitter behavior and heart health, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.

The research determined that language used on Twitter can closely predict cardiovascular mortality at the community level. This study was led by Raina Merchant.

“A lot of people think that some communication networks like Twitter do not have any serious purpose, that it’s superficial, that people are tweeting about what they had for breakfast,” David Asch, a researcher on the study was quoted as saying.

“Partly because people tweet from the heart — no pun intended — it may tell us a lot about people’s health in important ways,” Asch said.

Also read: #HBD: You can add your birthday dates to your Twitter Bio

Philadelphia County was in the 50th percentile for CDC-reported atherosclerotic heart disease (AHD) deaths versus the 60th percentile for Twitter-predicted AHD deaths.

“Penn is seeking a deeper understanding of the relationship so doctors and patients could potentially use Twitter as a cost-efficient surveillance tool for heart disease.” Asch said.

“One-fifth of the world’s population uses Facebook and Twitter and the kinds of things that people tweet reveal something about health in a kind of interesting way.”Asch explained the study will analyze social media vernacular with an emphasis on phrases’ meanings, instead of a literal take on the tweets content.

For instance, a tweet that says someone is about to have a heart attack is often an exaggeration, and would be evaluated differently than other tweets displaying a generally negative outlook.Reports The Times of India.

“The research will build on the correlating Twitter topics established in Penn’s first study, which looked at keywords exhibiting hostility (mostly profanity), fatigue (boring, tired, sore, sleep) and interpersonal tension (hate, jealous, drama, liar). Twitter users posting this language were more likely to die from AHD” The experts said.

Currently most companies are challenged by employees who reduce the company’s productivity because of social media addiction. Human are social beings but most of the time people tend to spend more time on social media than face to face discussions. The general effects of social media include; low self esteem, depression, unemployment and sometimes stress. The current bad social media habits can be avoided so that weird complications don’t accrue. An addict should avoid reading anything they come across, avoid posting irrelevant information and have friends that can build you or people who can help you in one way or another.

Also read: Project Lightning to highlight trending events on twitter

Erick Vateta564 Posts

--- Erick Vateta is a lawyer by training, poet, script and creative writer by talent, a model, and tech enthusiast. He covers International tech trends, data security and cyber attacks.

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