Applying Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) to PERMA+H Framework: Analysing Well-Being Expressions in Suomi24 Online Discussions

Psychological wellbeing has long been studied through surveys and interviews that rely on individuals’ self-reported experiences. With the rise of digital communication, however, new opportunities have emerged to observe how wellbeing is expressed organically in everyday language. This study investigates how the multidimensional components of a wellbeing framework -- the PERMA+H framework, are reflected in Finnish online discussions, using a large-scale dataset from the Suomi24 forum spanning from 2001 to 2020. By applying a lexicon-based approach to extract wellbeing-related features and employing Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for clustering and visualisation, the study identifies distinct patterns of wellbeing expression across different subforums and over time. The analysis reveals thematic zones of wellbeing: Positive Emotion and Relationships often co-occur in emotionally expressive spaces, while Engagement and Accomplishment are prevalent in discussions of work and study. A “low wellbeing” region was also identified, alongside a gradual decline in wellbeing indicators across the two-decade period. These findings suggest that online discourse can meaningfully reflect psychological states and their temporal shifts. By bridging positive psychology, computational social science, and the emerging field of wellbeing informatics, this research offers new insights into how emotional life manifests and evolves within digital communities.