Social Media as a Tool for Understanding the Role of Motor Differences in Neurodivergent Identity and Lived Experience

Abstract

Social media offers an exciting opportunity for the field of motor development and behavior research. With platforms such as Twitter offering access to historical data from users’ public bios and posts, there is untapped potential to examine community perspectives on the role of motor differences in identity and lived experience. Analysis of online discourse offers advantages over traditional qualitative methods like structured interviews or focus groups, including a less-contrived setting, global geographic and cultural representation, and ease of sampling. The aim of this special section is to present a pipeline for harvesting and analysis of Twitter data related to users’ identities and discourse characteristics, specifically situated in the context of motor development and behavior. This pipeline is demonstrated in two independent studies, one on autistic users and one on developmental coordination disorder (DCD)/dyspraxic users. These studies demonstrate the utility of Twitter data for research on neurodivergent and disabled people’s perspectives on their motor differences, and whether they are expressed as part of their identity. Implications of results are discussed for each study, as well as in the larger context of future research using a variety of approaches to analysis of social media data, including those from predominantly image- and video-based platforms.