JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The number of e-cigarette users has been growing rapidly in recent years, especially among youth and young adults. More e-cigarette products have become available, including e-liquids with various brands and flavors. Various e-liquid flavors have been frequently discussed by e-cigarette users on social media.

Objective:

In this study, we aim to characterize the prevalence of e-liquid flavors and their perceptions on social media.

Methods:

We applied a data-driven approach to e-liquid flavor classification and further analyzed the trends and macro-level user sentiment on social media. With data collected from online stores, e-liquid flavors were classified into categories in a flavor hierarchy based on their ingredients. The e-cigarette-related posts were collected from social media platforms including Reddit and Twitter using e-cigarette-related keywords. The temporal trend of e-liquid flavor categories was compiled using Reddit data from January 2013 to April 2019. Sentiment analysis was applied on Twitter data from May to August 2019 to explore e-cigarette users’ opinions towards each flavor category.

Results:

Over 1,000 unique e-liquid flavors were classified into seven major flavor categories. The “Fruit” and “Sweets” categories were the two most frequently discussed e-liquid flavors on Reddit, contributing to approximately 58% and 15% of all flavor-related posts. We showed that the “Fruit” flavor category had a steady overall upward trend, different from other flavor categories that did not show much change over time. Sentiment analysis results demonstrated that most e-liquid flavor categories had significant positive sentiments, except for “Beverage” and “Tobacco”.

Conclusions:

The prevalence of e-liquid flavors and their perceptions on social media were different. Fruit was the most frequently discussed flavor category on social media. Our study provides valuable information for future studies on flavored e-cigarettes.