What NLP Tells Us About COVID-19 and Mental Health with Johannes Eichstaedt

Today we're joined by Johannes Eichstaedt, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Johannes joined us at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic to discuss his use of Facebook and Twitter data to measure the psychological states of large populations and individuals. In our conversation, we explore how Johannes applies his physics background to a career as a computational social scientist, the differences in communication on social media vs the real world, and what language indicators point to changes in mental health. We also discuss some of the major patterns in the data that emerged over the first few months of lockdown, including mental health, social norms, and political patterns. We also explore how Johannes built the process, and the techniques he's using to collect, sift through, and understand the data.