Pro-vaping posts on Instagram have outpaced prevention campaigns

Originally marketed and promoted as a way to quit smoking, e-cigarettes have also become very popular among young people in many countries, mainly through the sale of flavored options and through active promotion. A new study[1] reveals that campaigns aimed at preventing the initiation of e-cigarette use, particularly by young people, are marginal compared to the volume of pro-vape marketing on social networks. The number of publications promoting and marketing the use of e-cigarettes on Instagram is so disproportionate that it exceeds the publications of awareness campaigns by a ratio of 10,000:1. In this same study published in Frontiers in Communication[2], researchers at the University of California analyzed hundreds of thousands of Instagram posts between 2017 and 2019 to see if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) campaign had an impact on vaping social interactions. Julia Vassey, lead author of the study and a researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment, said the study found that the average number of likes on pro-vaping Instagram posts had actually increased once the campaign[3] The FDA campaign had begun. The researchers found that each pro-vaping hashtag, such as #vape or #vapenation, posted more than 500,000 new posts each month. By comparison, the FDA campaign hashtag, #TheRealCost, was posted only about 50 times per month during the same period. Vassey’s team also analyzed more than 40,000 vaping posts on Instagram using “deep learning” software that allowed them to identify the content of each image. The team found that the most popular e-cigarette marketing messages included female and young models using vapes or men performing tricks using e-cigarettes that are popular with teens. ©Tobacco Free Generation

---

---

[1] Vassey Julia, Metayer Catherine, Kennedy Chris J., Whitehead Todd P. "#Vape: Measuring E-Cigarette Influence on Instagram With Deep Learning and Text Analysis", Frontiers in Communication https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00075 DOI=10.3389/fcomm.2019.00075 [2] Ibid [3] https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/public-health-education/real-cost-campaign | ©National Committee Against Smoking |