Work

Online Myths on Opioid Use Disorder: A Comparison of Reddit and Large Language Model

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Online communities on Reddit are a popular choice among people with opioid use disorder (OUD) to seek information on drug use, withdrawal symptoms, and recovery. LLM-powered chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT) are widely being adopted as question-answer systems for health-related queries. However, such online health information seeking could potentially be hindered by myths and misinformation on OUD, misleading or causing genuine harm to people with OUD. In this work, we examine the prevalence of 5 OUD-related myths, on treatment models and patient characteristics, within human- (taken from Reddit) and LLM-generated responses to queries on OUD. We further explore the framing strategies used within responses (both human- and LLM-generated) promoting and countering the myths. We found that all 5 myths were more widespread within human-generated responses. In addition, myth-promoting responses adopted trustworthy and authoritative framings, compared to knowledge-imparting linguistic cues within those countering the myths. Our work offers recommendations to reduce online OUD misinformation.

Source: Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

DOI: 10.1609/icwsm.v19i1.35870

Authors: Shravika Mittal, Hayoung Jung, Mai ElSherief, Tanushree Mitra, Munmun De Choudhury

Institutions: Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Washington, Northeastern University

Language: English

Topic: Misinformation and Its Impacts

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: National Science Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute on Drug Abuse