DocNessMonster

BlueSky has become a social media platform that many scientists are flocking to after an exodus from X (Xodus). I joined BlueSky in November 2024, like many others, following concerns over changes to privacy policies, misinformation, and the amplification of polarizing views on X.

As a pain researcher, I was particularly interested in what people are posting about in pain research since the Xodus, who is posting, and the amount of engagement these posts are receiving. I used the BlueSky Posts Scraper on APIFY to gather posts with the #PainResearch hashtag from November 1, 2024, until today, December 20, 2024. In this timeframe, there were 117 posts using the #PainResearch hashtag. Of these, 47 (40.17%) contained a link, and 39 (33.33%) contained an image.

I generated a word cloud of the top 30 words used in #PainResearch posts on BlueSky, excluding common words such as ‘great,’ ‘new,’ and ‘lab,’ (full list in the code). Some of the most common terms included pain, neurons, and human. A lot of people are posting about papers and preprints that are available. What I found particularly interesting was that only one ion channel appeared in the word cloud, and that was TRPV1.

To assess the engagement of #PainResearch posts, I examined the number of unique authors, the number of posts per author, and the engagement metrics—likes, replies, and reposts—associated with these posts. There were 37 unique authors who posted about #PainResearch on BlueSky. While most authors only had a single post, four authors made eight or more unique posts: Ted Price, Nesia Zurek, Dr. Ali Barry, and Migraine Science Collaborative. The total engagement for all #PainResearch posts was 1,232 likes, 216 reposts, and 119 replies. Engagement varied across authors.

As we close out 2024 and move into 2025, I hope to see more posts about #PainResearch on BlueSky and an increase in engagement as more scientists join the platform. Using BlueSky to share current research, preprints, and new ideas could spark interesting discussions and foster new collaborations among scientists. Stay tuned for another analysis next year!

BlueSky Posts Scraper: https://apify.com/lexis-solutions/bluesky-posts-scraper
Code and raw data: https://github.com/DocNessMonster/BlueSky_PainResearch