Can Facebook Predict Addiction Treatment Dropouts?

AND SO MUCH LESS –

June 24, 2023 – To improve treatment effectiveness, researchers are exploring ways to identify individuals who are more likely to complete treatment successfully and avoid relapse. One avenue of research focuses on analyzing social media activities of individuals with substance use disorder, as it may provide valuable insights.

However, identifying such individuals is not easy. Current mainstream methods are based on self-reports and not very good at accurately identifying and evaluating factors relevant for predicting how individuals will behave and react to treatment. This inability to capture the intricacies of daily life of each individual that are relevant for the development of substance use disorder are referred to as the ecological information gap.

One possible way to overcome the ecological information gap might be to rely on the analysis of social media activities of individuals suffering from substance use disorder, rather than on self-report assessments in clinical settings. However, unlike self-report assessments social media activity is difficult to analyze.