Complementing studies on vulnerable youths with reddit data

Conference paper (2021)

Authors

A. Mauri Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence - IDE
A. Bozzon Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence - IDE
J.S. Lee Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Jason Pridmore Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Liesbet Van Zoonen Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Sarah Giest Universiteit Leiden
Research Group
Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence (IDE) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2021 A. Mauri, A. Psyllidis, A. Bozzon, J.S. Lee, Jason Pridmore, Liesbet Van Zoonen, Sarah Giest
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3464385.3464703
NLP Text mining Reddit Social media analysis NEETs Topic analysis Vulnerable youth
More Info
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Published Date

2021

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Department

Sustainable Design Engineering

Research Group

Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Social web data increasingly complement studies of various social phenomena, especially when the availability of traditional data is limited. One such case is that of vulnerable young populations that are disengaged from employment, education, or training; usually referred to as NEETs. This paper explores the extent to which social media data and discussion websites could complement conventional sources in the study of NEETs. We focus on user-generated content posted to the dedicated r/NEET subreddit, which gathers subscribers who self-identify as NEETs. We develop and implement a data processing pipeline for the analysis of the behavioral patterns and main concerns of this social group. Our analysis of Reddit data reaches similar conclusions to official reports from governmental institutions in Europe. The paper also provides insights into health-related issues and latent interests of NEETs, not recorded in official reports and related literature.