‘Biohacking’: A thematic analysis of tweets to better understand how ‘biohackers’ conceptualise their practices

Biohacking, considered to include technology such as wearables, lifestyle changes and nutrition to allow one to optimise their health, is growing in popularity. However, the definition of and insights according to those involved in these practices remains elusive and unexplored. Technological advancements, including the internet, have given rise to globally connected communities and various health-related consumer technologies that measure health metrics from the comfort of one’s own home. While health-related information sharing and technology-assisted health tracking may appear beneficial, it also affords many opportunities for harm through the spread of misinformation and the use of potentially inaccurate devices. Adopting a qualitative approach using thematic analysis, this study focused on identifying the practices and topics discussed publicly on the Twitter social media associated with the hashtags #biohacking and #biohacker. The main topics were physical fitness, nutrition, mental health, self-development, genetics, and neuroscience. Most of the biohacking practices were found to be health-centric and include practices such as dietary or herbal supplements or chip implants that could interact with medical investigations and treatments. This highlights that biohacking practices should be included as part of a proper medical history to allow healthcare providers to recommend safe and appropriate therapies, and to avoid supplement-drug interactions and adverse events. Implications for biohacking are vast and minimising harms, whilst optimising benefits at the individual and population level requires a better understanding of how biohacking practices are conceptualised. This will help inform healthcare decision-makers, policymakers, and industries associated with the practices identified. Author Summary Biohacking is growing in popularity and there is no published literature exploring exactly what this relatively new phenomenon entails and how biohackers conceptualise it. Published literature on biohacking often refers to the practise as involving invasive subdermal chip plants or various forms of technology. We searched Twitter using hashtags #biohacker and #biohacking to identify public tweets discussing this practise. We found the phenomenon of biohacking to be amorphous, encompassing a wide range of lifestyle measures, some of which do not require the use of technology such as nutrition and exercise. The advent of internet and technology has made health-related information sharing easily accessible across the globe, allowing users to track their health metrics and make changes without the input of a trained health professional. Implications for this are vast and includes many potential benefits but also many potential harms due to the spread of misinformation, and interactions between drugs and medical treatments. Our study provides new insights into how the emerging biohacking movement is conceptualised by biohackers on social media, implications for health safety and the need for a refined definition of biohacking to assist medical practitioners in talking with patients about their practises.