Your tweets can reveal whether you are a psychopath, with the frequent use of words such as 'die', 'kill' and 'bury' among the key warning signs.

Swearing too much is also a giveaway, according to research by computer science professors and doctoral students at London's Online Privacy Foundation.

The boffins claim users' word choices indicate personality traits and their research could be used by police to identify potential threats or by bosses when hiring employees.

Chris Sumner, who heads the foundation, warned: 'People are making judgements about others based on social media. Companies even exist that will do this for you if you're hiring.
'However, almost all research says more research is needed before social media screening should be considered for use.'

Previous studies have looked at relationships between a person's mental health and their language but few have focused on social media - used by millions every day to share their thoughts and feelings with the world.

Engineering and computer science professor, Taghi Khoshoftaar, and doctoral student, Randall Wald, applied existing psychological formula to a person's writing to determine if they were psychopathic.

They used a computer programme to scan tweets - as well as looking at questionnaire answers - of nearly 3,000 volunteers and found around 1.4 per cent showed showed psychopathic tendencies.

But the research is limited, with the computer programme not able to recognise abbreviated words common on Twitter or the tone of a tweet.

Wald told US newspaper Sun Sentinel: 'It is not enough to send in the SWAT team because someone is highly rated on this.'