Murder in 140 chars: Identifying psychopaths from the way they tweet

Do you frequently tweet words like "die," "kill," and "bury," or use swear words often? If so, you could be a psychopath, a new study has suggested.

Useful to employers and police  

Computer science professors and doctoral students at London's Online Privacy Foundation said such word choices could help bosses identify potential problem employees, according to a report on UK's Daily Mail.

 

The study also indicated police can use the findings to identify potential threats, according to the report.

 

"People are making judgments about others based on social media. Companies even exist that will do this for you if you're hiring," it quoted foundation head Chris Sumner as saying.

New focus on social media  

Earlier, engineering and computer science professor Taghi Khoshoftaar and doctoral student Randall Wald had used psychological formulae on people's handwriting to determine if they were psychopathic, the Daily Mail report said.

 

The report also said previous studies had looked at relationships between a person's mental health and their language, but few have focused on social media.

 

Yet, it said social media is now being used by millions daily to post their thoughts online.

Limited research

 

However, the Daily Mail report said the research is limited at this time, as the computer program is not able to recognize abbreviations used on Twitter nor nuances of language.

 

"It is not enough to send in the SWAT team because someone is highly rated on this," Wald told US newspaper Sun Sentinel. — TJD, GMA News