  Psychosocial stressors and the symptomatology of mental disorders vary across
cultures. However, current understandings of mental health expressions on
social media are predominantly derived from studies in WEIRD (Western,
Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) contexts. In this paper, we
analyze mental health posts on Reddit made by individuals in India, to identify
variations in online depression language specific to the Indian context
compared to users from the Rest of the World (ROW). Unlike in Western samples,
we observe that mental health discussions in India additionally express
sadness, use negation, are present-focused, and are related to work and
achievement. Illness is uniquely correlated to India, indicating the
association between depression and physical health in Indian patients. Two
clinical psychologists validated the findings from social media posts and found
95% of the top 20 topics associated with mental health discussions as prevalent
in Indians. Significant linguistic variations in online mental health-related
language in India compared to ROW, emphasize the importance of developing
precision-targeted interventions that are culturally appropriate.
