Twitter data as a linked digital phenotype in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

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This data note describes the collection and linkage of participants' Twitter data as a digital phenotype in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) multi-generational birth cohort study. Twitter (renamed X in 2023) is a social media platform based around a micro-blog format. Digital phenotyping represents a novel opportunity for cohort studies to collect data with a low participant burden, and outside of discrete measurement periods. The ALSPAC governance framework supports the ethical consenting, storage and sharing of social media data, and linking Twitter data with wider cohort data provides opportunities to assess Twitter data quality concerns in a research context. All adults currently participating in ALSPAC (N=26,205) were invited to take part, which included the index cohort and their parents. N=3,247 indicated that they were Twitter users, 26% of these (N=835) consented and 19% (N=623) had their data successfully linked. Data were collected using our open-source software, Epicosm in February 2023. Approximately two thirds of the linked Twitter cohort are from the index cohort generation, and the remainder from the parent generation. In general, linked participants are representative of the general ALSPAC cohort, with the exception of having slightly higher educational attainment. This is consistent with previous research into the demographics of Twitter users. Overall the linked dataset contains 1,488,517 posts (tweets) from between 2008 and 2023, with 27% of these being 'retweets'. The available data includes information derived from a range of commonly used sentiment scoring algorithms, type of tweet, public metrics such as likes and retweets, and the time and date of the tweet. Controls are in place to maintain the anonymity of cohort participants, and data linkage is managed by ALSPAC’s data linkage team to reduce disclosure risk. This ensures high standards of data security and ethical use of social media data.

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