Exploring the unique challenges of social media mining and analysis: A case-study of physical activity-related content on Reddit recovery forums

Introduction: Recovery from substance use is a lifelong process, and physical activity can serve as a valuable support strategy. People in, or who are seeking, recovery may turn to online forums – including Reddit – to exchange experiences and offer mutual support. Efforts to extract physical activity-related content from these forums may encounter challenges due to ambiguous and metaphorical language inherent to social media, which warrants further consideration. Objective: This study examines how people discuss physical activity within SUD-recovery subreddits while also highlighting the challenges in extracting content relevant to the topic. Methods: We used Reddit PRAW, to scrape r/RedditorsInRecovery, r/Addiction, r/OpiatesRecovery, and r/AlcoholicsAnonymous for posts referencing types of physical activity. After allocated N=4946 posts, we used Term-Frequency Inverse Document Frequency to create embeddings with our data, k-means clustering to extract themes within the data, and Word2Vec to identify common word associations. Results: Our k-means clustering returned an optimum number of 7 clusters, or themes, including themes comprising sober meetings, spirituality, difficulties with withdrawal, and physical activity. A Word2Vec of physical activity related queries yielded few words associated with physical activity, though diverse facets of recovery were expressly mentioned. Discussion and Conclusion: Our findings illustrate the difficult nature of identifying physical activity content in Reddit recovery spaces due to inconsistent literal and metaphorical language. These challenges can lead to misinterpretations in population health surveillance. Improved tools and analysis strategies can better support research aimed to understand how recovery-supporting behaviors, including physical activity, are discussed and promoted online.