{"id":145702,"date":"2016-03-21T14:56:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T18:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=145702"},"modified":"2016-03-23T17:23:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T21:23:18","slug":"can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The combination of drinking, social media, and sharing has provided Rochester researchers with an innovative test case for analyzing ongoing behavior by Twitter users and then using this analysis to study patterns about drinking in different communities.<\/p>\n

In a new paper<\/a><\/strong>, PhD student Nabil Hossain reports that he and his collaborators have taught computers to analyze tweets about drinking in an effort to predict where Twitter users are when they report drinking.<\/p>\n

\"Heatmaps
Heatmaps show concentrations of tweets while drinking from Monroe County, NY (left) and New York City.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hossain is a student in the computer science group led by Henry Kautz, the Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science. He posted the paper on the arXiv.org repository after it was accepted for the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media to be held in Germany in May. An article in MIT Technology Review<\/em>, which has helped Hossain\u2019s work find a viral life of its own, says the work is based on \u201ctwo breakthroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first is a way to train a machine-learning algorithm to spot tweets that relate to alcohol and those sent by people drinking alcohol at the time,\u201d according to the article. \u201cThe second is a way to find a Twitter user\u2019s home location with much greater accuracy than has ever been possible and therefore to determine whether they are drinking at home or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first step, the researchers chose to use alcohol consumption to demonstrate the effectiveness of their model, which can not only distinguish between people who are discussing an activity versus those who are discussing performing the activity themselves, but can also determine whether they are performing it at-the-moment as opposed to some time\u00a0in the past or the future. This\u00a0model could also be applied to other behaviors, not just drinking.<\/p>\n

Until now, predicting a social media user\u2019s home location was done by establishing the place from which the user most frequently tweets, or the most common last location of the day from which the user posts. In the new work, the researchers applied machine-learning techniques to identify in-the-moment user behavior. That allowed them to accurately predict users\u2019 home locations within 100 meters.<\/p>\n

Combining these tools, they were able to discover patterns of alcohol use in urban and suburban settings. Their goal is that \u201csuch methods can help us better understand the occurrence, frequency, and settings of alcohol consumption, a health-risk behavior, and can lead to actionable information in prevention and public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more in MIT Technology Review<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Computer science graduate student Nabil Hossain and his collaborators have taught computers to analyze tweets about drinking to determine if people were actually drinking at the time they were tweeting and if they were tweeting from home or some other location. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":145732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[456],"tags":[11716,25592,15512,18572],"class_list":["post-145702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-culture","tag-data-science","tag-goergen-institute-for-data-science-and-artificial-intelligence","tag-henry-kautz","tag-research-finding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Computer science graduate student Nabil Hossain and his collaborators have taught computers to analyze tweets about drinking to determine if people were actually drinking at the time they were tweeting and if they were tweeting from home or some other location.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leonor Sierra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@leonor_sierra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leonor Sierra\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Leonor Sierra\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf\"},\"headline\":\"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":443,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/03\\\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"data science\",\"Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence\",\"Henry Kautz\",\"research finding\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Society & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/\",\"name\":\"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/03\\\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/03\\\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/03\\\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":600,\"caption\":\"a heat map of New York City showing concentration of twitter activity about drinking\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/\",\"name\":\"News Center\",\"description\":\"University of Rochester\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf\",\"name\":\"Leonor Sierra\",\"description\":\"Leonor Sierra is press officer for science and engineering. She covers computer science, electrical and computer engineering, laboratory for laser energetics, optics, mechanical engineering, physics and astronomy, and the Office of the Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/leonor_sierra\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/author\\\/lsierra\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?","og_description":"Computer science graduate student Nabil Hossain and his collaborators have taught computers to analyze tweets about drinking to determine if people were actually drinking at the time they were tweeting and if they were tweeting from home or some other location.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/","og_site_name":"News Center","article_published_time":"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg","width":1000,"height":600,"type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Leonor Sierra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@leonor_sierra","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Leonor Sierra","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/"},"author":{"name":"Leonor Sierra","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/#\/schema\/person\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf"},"headline":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?","datePublished":"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/"},"wordCount":443,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg","keywords":["data science","Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence","Henry Kautz","research finding"],"articleSection":["Society & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/","url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/","name":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg","datePublished":"2016-03-21T18:56:43+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-23T21:23:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/#\/schema\/person\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fea-drinking-tweeting.jpg","width":1000,"height":600,"caption":"a heat map of New York City showing concentration of twitter activity about drinking"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-a-computer-tell-if-youre-drinking-while-tweeting-145702\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can a computer tell if you\u2019re drinking while tweeting?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/","name":"News Center","description":"University of Rochester","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/#\/schema\/person\/b7147819f5697bc51d79e734e5a9efcf","name":"Leonor Sierra","description":"Leonor Sierra is press officer for science and engineering. She covers computer science, electrical and computer engineering, laboratory for laser energetics, optics, mechanical engineering, physics and astronomy, and the Office of the Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/leonor_sierra"],"url":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/author\/lsierra\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145702"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145752,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145702\/revisions\/145752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}