Adolescents and Young Adults Use of Social Media and Following of e-Cigarette Influencers

Abstract

Background

With high rates of both e-cigarette and social media use among adolescents and young adults (AYAs), social media influencers who promote e-cigarettes are particularly concerning but are understudied. We examined the association between AYAs’ use of 11 different social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube) and exposure to social media e-cigarette influencers.

Objectives

From November 2022 to February 2023, we conducted an online, US national survey of AYAs (14–29 years) who endorsed past-30-day e-cigarette use. We used binomial logistic regression to examine associations between the frequency of use of each social media platform and following e-cigarette influencers, controlling for age, sex, race, ethnicity, e-cigarette use frequency, and other tobacco and substance use (i.e., alcohol and cannabis). The model was stratified by adolescents (14–17 years; n = 293) and young adults (18–29 years; n = 654).

Results

The most frequently used social media platforms were Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram among adolescents, and YouTube, Instagram and TikTok among young adults. In adjusted models, following e-cigarette influencers was associated with more frequent use of TikTok (adjusted odds ratio [95% CI]; 1.33 [1.05, 1.68]) and Pinterest (1.18 [1.02, 1.38]) among adolescents, and more frequent use of Twitter (1.17 [1.06, 1.29]) among young adults.

Conclusions

The use of different platforms was associated with exposure to e-cigarette influencers: TikTok and Pinterest among adolescents and Twitter among young adults. These findings can inform tobacco regulatory policy and social media platform restrictions of e-cigarette influencers on the platforms that are popular among AYAs.

Keywords:

• e-cigarettes
• social media
• youth
• young adults.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by R01DA049878 (PI: G, Kong). Juhan Lee, Grace Kong and Meghan Morean’s effort was also supported by grant number U54DA036151 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). Rachel R. Ouellette’s efforts for this study were funded by NIDA T32 DA019426-18 (PI: Tebes). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or the Food and Drug Administration.