The Use of Mixed-Reality Sport Platforms in Social Media Sentiment Analysis during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Sport and physical activity are very closely related to people’s health. The COVID-19 pandemic has made everyone aware of the importance of maintaining regular physical activity. The lockdowns and mandatory social distancing experienced during the epidemic underlined the importance of new sports platforms that bring traditional sports, such as cycling, to the virtual world. This work focuses on the ZWIFT cycling application as an exemplary mixed-reality sport platform. Sentiment analysis (or opinion mining) aims to explore the emotions behind the opinions expressed in texts on different topics. We used sentiment analysis of social media platforms (Twitter and Reddit) to provide valuable information on the culture surrounding mixed reality sports platforms. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.