Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Nov 2, 2018
Date Accepted: Apr 27, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Tobacco Use Behaviors, Attitudes, and Demographic Characteristics of Tobacco Opinion Leaders and Their Followers on Twitter
ABSTRACT
Background:
Tobacco-related content on social media is generated and propagated by online opinion leaders, who disseminate messages to their followers. Opinion leaders can exert powerful influences on their followers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, yet little is known about the demographic characteristics and tobacco use behavior of online tobacco opinion leaders and their followers, compared with the general Twitter population.
Objective:
We hypothesized that opinion leaders would use more tobacco products and have higher nicotine dependence than the other two groups, and that followers would be more likely to be in demographic groups that are vulnerable to tobacco marketing influence (e.g., young adults, racial/ethnic minorities). We also explore reasons for tobacco product use among opinion leaders, followers and general Twitter users.
Methods:
We constructed the social networks of people who tweet about tobacco and categorized them using a combination of social network and Twitter metrics. To understand the characteristics of tobacco opinion leaders and their followers, we conducted a survey of tobacco opinion leaders, their followers, and general Twitter users. The sample included 347 opinion leaders, 567 followers, and 519 general users. The opinion leaders had a median of 1000 followers, whereas followers and general users had fewer than 600.
Results:
Opinion leaders were more likely than their followers to report past-month use of tobacco products; followers, in turn, were more likely to report past-month use of these products than general Twitter users. The followers appeared to be an especially vulnerable group; they tended to be younger (mean age=22.4 years) and have lower education compared with the opinion leaders and the general users. Differences in followers, opinion leaders, and general users’ reasons for tobacco use and nicotine dependence are also reported.
Conclusions:
Followers of Twitter tobacco opinion leaders are a vulnerable group that might benefit from anti-tobacco education to counter the pro-tobacco communications they see on social media.
Citation
