| Download | - View final version: Examining the language of solitude versus loneliness in tweets (PDF, 353 KiB)
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| DOI | Resolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407521998460 |
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| Author | Search for: Hipson, Will E.ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3931-2189; Search for: Kiritchenko, Svetlana1; Search for: Mohammad, Saif M.1; Search for: Coplan, Robert J. |
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| Affiliation | - National Research Council of Canada. Digital Technologies
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| Format | Text, Article |
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| Subject | emotion; language; loneliness; solitude; text analysis |
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| Abstract | People have widely different experiences of being alone. Sometimes being alone is relaxing and restorative other times it gives way to feelings of loneliness. Researchers conceptually distinguish between solitude, which tends to be viewed more positively, and loneliness, which is more negative. However, it is unclear whether these terms are used differently in everyday language. We sought to compare the emotional content of over 19 million tweets containing the terms solitude and lonely/loneliness. Using a computational linguistics approach, we found that solitude tends to be used in more positive and less emotionally activated (i.e., lower arousal) contexts compared to lonely. We also found that the word alone tends to be used somewhat differently from solitude and lonely. These results have implications both for how we understand different experiences of time alone in general and for what kind of language we should use when discussing these experiences. |
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| Publication date | 2021-03-09 |
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| Publisher | Sage
International Association for Relationship Research |
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| Language | English |
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| Peer reviewed | Yes |
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| Export citation | Export as RIS |
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| Report a correction | Report a correction (opens in a new tab) |
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| Record identifier | fcf9e9a2-b1cb-4f6f-9ffb-ffb7284f70c3 |
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| Record created | 2021-09-10 |
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| Record modified | 2021-09-23 |
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