This ongoing study investigates the effect that proximate criminal activity has on emotional expression in social media. Proximity to crime and well constant fear of crime can have great negative psychological effects on individuals. Social media currently being one of the most popular means of publicly expressing personal opinions and emotions, we expect to find an effect of temporal and spatial proximity to crime on social media mood expression and other patterns of online communication. Moreover, we expect that the use of certain terms related to crime will have different emotional connotations that correlate with the baseline criminal level of activity in the area.
The SocWeB Lab's mission is to develop novel computational techniques, and technologies powered by these techniques, to responsibly and ethically employ social media in quantifying, understanding, and improving our mental health and well-being.
