Tweets tracked in US health study

7 July 2011 Last updated at 10:53 GMT The study revealed trends about allergies Twitter could become a useful source of information about health, according to US researchers.

Two John Hopkins University computer scientists studied 1.5 million health-related tweets between May 2009 and October 2010.

It provided an insight into how Twitter users viewed a range of illnesses and how they went about treating themselves.

It also showed that many chose the wrong drugs to tackle common ailments.

"Tweets showed us that some serious medical misperceptions exist out there," said PhD student Michael J. Paul who helped run the research project.

"We found that some people tweeted that they were taking antibiotics for the flu," he said. "But antibiotics don't work on the flu, which is a virus, and this practice could contribute to the growing antibiotic resistance problems."

Headache

To find health-related posts among the billions of messages sent during the study period, the researchers devised a special filtering tool.

The computer program was taught to disregard phrases that did not really relate to health, even though they contained a word commonly used in a health context - such as "high price of gas is a headache for my business".

In about 200,000 of the health-related tweets, publicly available information meant the researchers could identify which US state they came from.

This allowed them to identify health trends across the US.

"We were able to see that the allergy season started earlier in the warmer states and later in the Midwest and Northeast," said Professor Mark Dredze.

But both scientists acknowledged that there were limitations to what they could discover about health issues via Twitter.

Often they found that tweeters did not comment more than once on a particular ailment.

"We could only learn what people were willing to share and we think there's a limit to what people are willing to share on Twitter," said Mr Paul.

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Space tweets

Despite being in outer space, astronaut Doug Wheelock kept in contact with earth by using Foursquare and other social networks

There is a current fad among the technologically literate for 'checking in' on location-based social networks such as Facebook and Foursquare.

Friends can see where you are and where you have been in the company of your mobile phone.

The practice has given rise to a whole new variety of geographical one-upmanship.

But while tagging yourself at the Ritz or the Empire State Building may impress some, few can match Doug Wheelock.

The American astronaut checked in while aboard the International Space Station in October last year.

His out-of-this-world update was part of Nasa's attempts to connect with fans and the general public by using social media.

In 2009, another astronaut, Mike Massimino, became the first person to tweet from outer space when he told his followers that he was "enjoying the magnificent views" en-route to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Paolo Nespoli, flight engineer on ISS Expedition, has been tweeting and posting pictures on social photography site Flickr .

Nasa currently administers over 100 Twitter accounts, 20 of which belong to astronauts sharing details of their day-to-day lives and experiences, much to the delight of their millions of followers.

"Thanks for an inside look at your prep for the mission," tweeted one. "Love the details of your training!"

Stephanie Schierholz, social media boss at Nasa, told Click on the BBC World Service that it was about opening up communication in ways never before possible.

"As a government agency, it's part of our DNA that we need to be open, that we need to communicate.

"Nasa, I think, has been really good about getting the word out, because we've been broadcasting our missions since the 1960s. Social media is another tool."

Opening doors

As well as communicating online, Nasa has been running "tweet-ups" for its online fans to get together in the real world.

"Essentially a tweet-up is an opportunity for our followers on Twitter to come to a Nasa location, or a Nasa-related location," Ms Schierholz explained.

"We bring them Nasa astronauts or managers or leaders, essentially to open the doors and say this is your space programme, this is what we're up to!"

Nasa-organised 'tweet-ups' at launches have really taken off

The events have proved extremely popular among space fanatics.

"The highest numbers are for our launch tweet-ups. We invite 150 people to each of those.

"The last time we got 2,700 registrations in 24 hours for those 150 spots," said Ms Schierholz.

Nasa also organises less formal meetings at other space or Nasa-related locations. Fans at these events can check in on Foursquare to earn a special "Nasa Explorer" badge.

And for the extremely enthusiastic fan, the position of mayor of the International Space Station is still technically up for grabs.

"Apparently the message never got to [Mr Wheelock] in space that he needed to check in a second time to be mayor," Ms Schierholz said.

"But I think he's become the honorary mayor.

"He's up for mayor of the year in the Shorty Awards for Foursquare."

A list of Nasa astronauts currently tweeting from space can be found here .

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