A new study found that youth with no prior tobacco use who used social media daily were 67% more likely to begin smoking after one year.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- Youth with no prior tobacco use who engaged daily with social media were found to be 67% more likely to start using tobacco products within a year compared to those who used these platforms less frequently.
- Young people who actively liked or followed tobacco-related content on social media platforms showed an even greater likelihood of initiating tobacco use, highlighting the potent role of direct engagement with tobacco brands in influencing first-time use.
- Despite some social media policies against tobacco marketing, the study highlights the effectiveness of tobacco companies in reaching youth through these platforms.
Frequent social media may increase the risk of youth using any tobacco product—including e-cigarettes—for the first time after one year, according to a new study.
Published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, the study found that youth with no prior tobacco use who used social media daily were 67% more likely to begin smoking after one year, compared to youth who used these platforms less frequently.
The results also showed that youth who actively engaged with tobacco marketing by liking or following content by major tobacco brands developed an even greater risk of first-time tobacco use.
As almost all young people are active on social media and engage with sites such as Instagram and TikTok repeatedly throughout the day, researchers say these findings raise concern about youth exposure to promotional content of harmful products.
While national cigarette smoking rates have declined substantially among US youth since the mid-1990s, an estimated 10% of middle and high school students—2.8 million people—currently use at least one tobacco product, and many also engage in dual use, particularly with e-cigarettes.
“Our results add to a growing body of literature documenting the harms of social media use for this age group, as well as how commercial interests such as the tobacco industry are targeting kids on these platforms,” says study lead and corresponding author Lynsie Ranker, PhD, assistant professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, in a release.
Study Methodology and Data Analysis
For the study, Ranker and colleagues examined possible associations between social media engagement and tobacco initiation risk utilizing data from the US Population Assessment for Tobacco and Health study, a nationally representative study of US youth ages 12 years and older, led by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Food and Drug Administration.
Focusing on data during two waves of the study from 2014-2016, the team identified 8,672 youth who had never used tobacco products before. Among this group, 63.5% used social media daily, and 3.3% liked or followed one or more tobacco brands on social media.
Youth who engaged directly with tobacco brands on these sites were 34% more likely to begin using any tobacco product for the first time and 60% more likely to start using more than one tobacco product. The findings on liking/following content and multi-product use were imprecise, but they support a growing body of research that points to young people’s increasing online activity.
Call for Regulatory Reforms
“It is not surprising that tobacco manufacturers target youth through social media,” says study coauthor Traci Hong, PhD, professor of media science at Boston University College of Communication, in a release. “While state and national efforts to curb social media use among youth continue to evolve, we should also focus on regulating the promotion of tobacco products on social media, as well as educating our youth about the risks of tobacco use.”
While the US Food and Drug Administration expanded its regulatory authority over the marketing of new and emerging tobacco products in 2016, restrictions on tobacco advertising on social media are largely at the discretion of the social media companies, rather than government officials. The researchers also note that these restrictions primarily apply to paid promotional content with the platforms, leaving loopholes for tobacco companies to target youth through branded accounts and collaborations with influencers.
“Based on our research, social media platforms lack self-regulation,” says study co-author Jessica Fetterman, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, in a release. “They have their own policies against tobacco marketing, yet many leading tobacco companies are able to maintain their own branded accounts to market their products. The government must step forward to regulate tobacco marketing on social media, just as they have done for other forms of media such as TV and print ads.”
