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  • Classification of depression-related online forums using Natural Language Processing
    181-208.
    Views:
    32

    The study of the phenomenon of depression is not new in sociology, but since the depression
    is becoming a wider social problem, it is still a relevant issue today. In addition to the biomedical and psychological aspects of depression, the sociological perspective is becoming more
    noteworthy in the discourse about the causes of depression. In the research of the discourse
    on depression, the online texts offer many new possibilities, as the forum’s anonymity and
    accessability make the online seeking for help popular. In this research, natural language
    processing (logistic regression) was applied to find patterns in the definition of depression
    in lay discourses. These methods make it possible to analyze a large amount of text - which
    would have been difficult to process with human resources. During the analysis, 67 857 posts of
    English-speaking online forums were categorized along the categories of the scientific discourse
    about depression. This study presents the first results, which shows logistic regression classifier
    performs like the annotators. . Although the research has analyzed English-speaking forums, my
    findings may be useful to anyone observing abstract sociological concepts in online texts written
    by users.

  • Social contacts and spending of leisure time of the elderly
    86-104
    Views:
    163

    The phenomenon of the aging of societies is now well-known, demonstrating its demographic, economic and social impact in many countries around the world. The increase in average life expectancy at birth and the low number of children have naturally triggered the emergence of declining, aging societies. All this has led to a number of tasks for policy makers, domestic and international organizations, primarily to promote active, healthy aging. This article describes some of the results of an empirical study of 167 people conducted jointly with St. Luke’s Greek Catholic Charity in the winter of 2019 in order to assess the situation and needs of the elderly. This article presents the results of our study, which focuses on community activities, leisure, and social relationships. During our analytical work, we found that those living in residential care homes are more open to community-based activities to maintain physical and mental activity.