Can Social Media Predict When You’ll Die?

Social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook collect a staggering amount of data points from us, so much data that our social media activity can pretty accurately reveal things from gym habits to the state of our mental well-being. But could social media data do more than just portray how healthy you are now? Could it predict how likely you are to be healthy in the future?

An article from last year covered a Facebook patent related to algorithms that can predict major life changes, including death. Could social media data do more than just portray how healthy you are now and instead look into the future?

Elaine Nsoesie, an assistant professor of global health at the School of Public Health and a data science faculty fellow at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering at Boston University, studies how digital information and social media can be used for infectious disease and public health surveillance.

Here, she digs into whether it’s feasible for social media data to tell us when we’ll die, based on her own data surveillance research.


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

books_privacy

 

More By This Author

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Tuesday, 04 May 2021 08:32

Cognitive motor training helps in the fight against Alzheimer’s and dementia, according to new research.

Thursday, 27 July 2023 20:13

How to train your body for hot weather if you are active or work outdoors Heat exposure is inevitable for those who work or are active outdoors. (Shutterstock) Global warming is making outdoor...

Wednesday, 19 May 2021 09:40

To “cry poor mouth” is an expression used to habitually complain about a lack of money. A literal poor mouth, however, represents one of the most widespread global diseases: tooth decay.

Tuesday, 25 July 2023 16:09

Volunteering in late life may be more than just a noble act of giving back to the community; it could be a critical factor in safeguarding the brain against cognitive decline and dementia.

Wednesday, 21 April 2021 07:23

Whether it’s your arthritic relative who knows rain is on the way when their knees ache or your lifelong pal who gets a headache when a storm is approaching, we all know somebody who claims they...

Friday, 14 May 2021 08:30

Fertility has declined in most industrialised countries. While the causes are largely unknown, a number of factors may contribute to declining fertility rates, including the age...

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.