Trend Analysis of Grow-Your-Own Using Social Network Analysis: Focusing on Hashtags on Instagram

Abstract

Background and objective The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on mental health, which has emerged as a major public health issue around the world. This study aimed to analyze trends and network structure of ‘grow-your-own (GYO)’ through Instagram, one of the most influential social media platforms, to encourage and sustain home gardening activities for promotion of emotional support and physical health. Methods A total of 6,388 posts including keyword hashtags ‘#gyo’ and ‘#growyourown’ on Instagram from June 13, 2020 to April 13, 2021 were collected. Word embedding was performed using Word2Veclibrary, and 7 clusters were identified with K-means clustering: GYO, garden and gardening, allotment, kitchen garden, sustainability, urban gardening, etc. Moreover, we conducted social network analysis to determine the centrality of related words and visualized the results using Gephi 0.9.2. Results The analysis showed that various combinations of words, such as #growourrownfood, #growourrownveggies, and #growwhatyoueat revealed preference and interest of users in GYO, and appeared to encourage their activities on Instagram. In particular, #gardeningtips, #greenfingers, #goodlife, #gardeninglife, #gardensofinstagram were found to express positive emotions and pride as a gardener by sharing their daily gardening lives. Users were participating in urban gardening through #allotment, #raisedbeds, #kitchengarden and we could identify trends toward self-sufficiency and sustainable living. Conclusion Based on these findings, it is expected that the trend data of GYO, which is a form of urban gardening, can be used as the basic data to establish urban gardening plans considering each characteristic, such as the emotions and identity of participants as well as their dispositions.