Analysis of Tweets Related with Physical Activity During COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the daily lifestyle and habits around the worldwide. Besides the impact of coronavirus on social life and canceling of gyms limited physical activity and exercise. The aim of this study was to analysis of tweet numbers and attitudes related with physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the timeline of Turkey outbreak. Methods: Twitter query performed in Turkish tweets between 1st of January and 14th of May 2020 including keywords “exercise” or “physical or activity” or “fitness” or “plates” or “gymnastics” or “inactive”. Collected tweet data sent to Google cloud natural language API for estimation of sentiment score. Tweets assigned as non-COVID period (1st of Jan-14th Mar; n=74 days) and COVID period (14th Mar-14th May; n=61 days) according to the prognosis of the pandemic in Turkey. Results: The number of tweets and both positive and negative sentiments score of tweets significantly increased in the COVID period in comparison to the non-COVID period. There was a significant decreased sentiment scores in COVID period when compared to non-COVID period however, during the COVID period, no significant differences found between forced isolation days and non-forced isolation days. Discussion: These results suggest that people had more leisure time and realized the importance of being active for a healthy lifestyle during this lockdown period in Turkey then both performed exercises and posted to Twitter more often. Current findings also showed that social media is a platform for promoting physical activity and exercise via peoples’ necessity to share and get interaction.