Changes in Viewer Engagement and Accessibility of Popular Vaping Videos on TikTok: A 12-Month Prospective Study

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Aim: There are concerns regarding what young people are exposed to on TikTok due to trending content promoting e-cigarette use through humour, marketing and lifestyle acceptability. Using baseline data from November 2020, we aimed to examine how much content from a sample of popular vaping videos remained accessible at 9- and 12-month follow-ups. We aimed to monitor changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) before and after the U.S. Congressional Hearing on youth protection measures on social media in October 2021. Methods: Hashtag-based keywords were used to collect the most viewed publicly available e-cigarette related videos on TikTok (N = 802) from inception to November 2020 to form a baseline. Researchers conducted a longitudinal descriptive study using this data, with 9- and 12-month follow-ups to measure changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) and content availability. Findings: Of the 802 videos from the baseline, 562 remained at the 9-month follow-up and 511 remained at the 12-month follow-up. At the 12-month follow-up, the majority of vaping-related hashtags were removed by TikTok after the Congressional Hearing. Between the baseline and 9-month follow up, views increased by 1.4% and likes increased by 4.4%. At 12-month follow-up, views had increased by 1.7% and likes by 4.2% compared to baseline data. Whilst 291 videos were no longer publicly accessible at 12-month follow-up, 39 of these were made inaccessible by the content creators. The most viewed and most liked vaping videos at baseline were still publicly available. Conclusions: Whilst the depiction type and thematic distribution of removed videos suggest that TikTok may be removing a small proportion of content that promotes the use of e-cigarettes, metadata of remaining videos indicate an increase in viewer engagement. TikTok’s removal of explicit substance-related hashtags from the platform could be a step towards preventing adolescents from being exposed to harmful behaviours and substances online. However, the platform should consider enforcing effective age restrictions on content that promotes substance use in a positive light.

Related collections

Most cited references 20

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

On the Psychology of TikTok Use: A First Glimpse From Empirical Findings

Christian Montag, Haibo Yang, Jon D. Elhai (2021)

TikTok (in Chinese: DouYin; formerly known as musical.ly) currently represents one of the most successful Chinese social media applications in the world. Since its founding in September 2016, TikTok has seen widespread distribution, in particular, attracting young users to engage in viewing, creating, and commenting on “LipSync-Videos” on the app. Despite its success in terms of user numbers, psychological studies aiming at an understanding of TikTok use are scarce. This narrative review provides a comprehensive overview on the small empirical literature available thus far. In particular, insights from uses and gratification theory in the realm of TikTok are highlighted, and we also discuss aspects of the TikTok platform design. Given the many unexplored research questions related to TikTok use, it is high time to strengthen research efforts to better understand TikTok use and whether certain aspects of its use result in detrimental behavioral effects. In light of user characteristics of the TikTok platform, this research is highly relevant because TikTok users are often adolescents and therefore from a group of potentially vulnerable individuals.

0 comments Cited 70 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Effects of Social Media on Adolescents’ Willingness and Intention to Use E-Cigarettes: An Experimental Investigation

Erin A. Vogel, Danielle Ramo, Mark Rubinstein … (2020)

This study examined effects of experimentally manipulated social media exposure on adolescents’ willingness and intention to use e-cigarettes. Participants were 135 adolescents age 13-18 (52.6% female, M age=15.3) in California. Participants viewed 6 social media posts online in a 2 (post source: peer or advertisement) X 2 (e-cigarette content exposure: heavy or light) between-subjects design. Analyses were weighted to population benchmarks. We examined adolescents’ beliefs, willingness, and intention to use e-cigarettes in association with social media use intensity in daily life and with experimentally manipulated exposure to social media posts that varied by source (peer or advertisement) and content (e-cigarette heavy or light). Greater social media use in daily life was associated with greater willingness and intention to use e-cigarettes and more positive attitudes, greater perceived norms, and lower perceived danger of e-cigarette use (all p-values<.01). In tests of the experimental exposures, heavy (versus light) e-cigarette content resulted in greater intention (p=.049) to use e-cigarettes and more positive attitudes (p=.019). Viewing advertisements (versus peer-generated posts) resulted in greater willingness and intention (p-values<.01) to use e-cigarettes, more positive attitudes (p=.003), and greater norm perceptions (p=.009). The interaction effect of post source by post content was not significant for any of the outcomes (all p-values>0.529) Greater social media use and heavier exposure to advertisements and e-cigarette content in social media posts are associated with a greater risk for e-cigarette use among adolescents. Regulatory action is needed to prohibit sponsored e-cigarette content on social media platforms used by youth.

0 comments Cited 68 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Perception of e-cigarette harm and its correlation with use among U.S. adolescents.

Stephen M Amrock, Joseph Zakhar, Sherry Zhou … (2015)

U.S. adolescents increasingly use e-cigarettes. The perceived harm of e-cigarettes has not been described, nor has the correlation between harm perception and e-cigarette use been assessed. This study examines correlates of e-cigarette harm perception and use of e-cigarettes in a national survey.