Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pop, Ioana Andreea
• Gielens, Erwin
• Kottmann, Hannah
• Achterberg, Peter

Titel

Exploring the discourses around microdosing psychedelics within the r/microdosing online community

Ist Teil von

• Social science & medicine (1982), 2024-04, Vol.347, p.116702-116702, Article 116702

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the present contribution, we examine the practice of microdosing psychedelics (microdosing) through textual analysis of the content produced by a dedicated online community, the r/microdosing subreddit. We collected a comprehensive dataset of publicly available submissions from this community and used structural topic modelling to identify and analyse the prevalent topics within the discussions. Through our analysis, we identified 16 distinct topics that mapped into clinical, human enhancement, as well as self-medication narratives. Notably, we found that the majority of discussions revolved around "how to" topics, supporting our argument that such online communities serve as essential information hubs, facilitating the dissemination of practical knowledge related to microdosing practices among the general population. The identified impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the prevalence of discussion topics suggests that individuals within the online community may perceive microdosing primarily as a means of self-medication during times of heightened stress and uncertainty. Our findings contribute to the field of health sociology and psychedelic research by shedding light on the sociocultural factors influencing healthcare practices, including the role of online communities in facilitating processes of self-medicalization and self-medication. •r/microdosing discussions cover clinical, enhancement & self-medication topics.•Self-medication topics dominate r/microdosing community discussions.•Discussions around "How to" topics surged during the pandemic.•Strategic use of scientific discourse may enhance microdosing's perceived legitimacy.