Talking about Tobacco on Twitter Is Associated with Tobacco Product Use
Open accessAbstract
Tobacco-related content appears on social media in the form of advertising and messages by individuals. However, little is known about associations between posting social media messages and tobacco product use among adolescents and young adults. Self-reports of tobacco product use were obtained from the Children's Health Study of young adults in Southern California. Among the 1486 respondents in the most recent wave of the cohort (2016-2017), 284 provided tobacco product use data and their Twitter user names to access publicly available Twitter account data (mean age = 20.1 yrs. (SD = 0.6), 54% female, 49% Hispanic). We obtained the tweets that those respondents posted on Twitter, searched the tweets for 14 nicotine- and tobacco-related keywords, and coded these statements as positive or negative/neutral. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine whether respondents who posted positive tobacco-related tweets were more likely to report tobacco product use, relative to those who did not post any positive tobacco-related tweets. Respondents who posted any positive messages about tobacco had significantly higher odds of reporting past month use of cigarettes (OR = 3.15, 95% CI = 1.36, 7.30) and any tobacco product (OR = 2.41, 95% CI = 1.16, 5.01), relative to respondents who did not post about tobacco. This is the first study to establish an empirical link between adolescents' and young adults' tobacco-related Twitter activity and their tobacco product use. Health communications about the risks of tobacco use could target adolescents who post positive messages about tobacco products on Twitter.
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Adolescents who participate in conversations about tobacco in social media by posting positive messages about tobacco are more likely to be past-month tobacco users.
“Adolescents who participate in conversations about tobacco in social media by posting positive messages about tobacco are more likely to be past-month tobacco users.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
The Discussion reports that adolescents and young adults who posted positive tobacco messages were more likely to be past-month tobacco users in young adulthood. The claim omits that timing and implies the users were adolescents; the measured respondents had a mean age of 20.1 years (Abstract). (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSocial media use is correlated with risk of tobacco use.
“Ten reports found correlations between social media use and risk of different types of addictions: with internet [17,24,49,51,52,66], with substance abuse [15,67], with alcohol addiction and gaming [67], with gambling [68], and with tobacco use [69].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
Posting even only one positive tobacco-related tweet was associated with greater odds of using cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or any tobacco product, compared to those who did not post positive messages about tobacco.
“Posting even only one positive tobacco-related tweet was associated with greater odds of using cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or any tobacco product, compared to those who did not post positive messages about tobacco [69].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
It is not clear if the relationship between youth tobacco use and tobacco social media posts is cause-effect or only a correlation.
“It is not clear if the relationship can be cause-effect or only a correlation.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
There might be a relationship between youth using tobacco and tobacco social media posts.
“Finally, there might be a relationship between youth using tobacco and tobacco social media posts.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
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The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks.
Bozzola, E., Spina, G., Agostiniani, R., Barni, S., Russo, R., Scarpato, E., Di Mauro, A., Di Stefano, A. V., Caruso, C., Corsello, G., et al. (2022) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph19169960 · Cited by 552 · see citing works
“Ten reports found correlations between social media use and risk of different types of addictions: with internet [17,24,49,51,52,66], with substance abuse [15,67], with alcohol addiction and gaming [67], with gambling [68], and with tobacco use [69].”
Background
- Authors
- Unger, J. B., Urman, R., Cruz, T. B., Majmundar, A., Barrington-Trimis, J., Pentz, M. A., & McConnell, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Corresponding author
- Unger, Jennifer B.
- Venue
- Preventive Medicine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 114
- Pages
- 54-56
- ISSN
- 0091-7435 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6644040
- OpenAlex
- W2807165107
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 5.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Preventive Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- National Cancer Institute
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Keywords
- tobacco product use, Twitter, social media, adolescents, young adults, cigarette smoking, nicotine, health communication, Children's Health Study
- MeSH terms
- Adult, California, Female, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Smoking, Young Adult, Social Media, Tobacco Products, Tobacco Use
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