A Keyword Analysis of Lonely Deaths Across Generations Before and After COVID-19 Using News Big Data: Focusing on Youths, Middle-aged Adults, and Older Adults

This study compares and analyzes loneliness-related keywords across generations(youth, middle age, and older adulthood) before and after COVID-19, using the Big Kines website, which aggregates and analyzes news from domestic media outlets. The analysis covers articles published between 2010 and 2024 and employs trend, co-occurrence network, and keyword association analysis to examine shifts in media coverage. The results reveal that public and media attention toward solitary deaths has significantly expanded across all generations since the COVID-19 outbreak, with particularly notable growth in coverage related to youth and middle-aged groups. These findings suggest that solitary death is becoming a broad structural issue affecting multiple generations.