Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Aug 28, 2022
Date Accepted: Nov 14, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Monitoring and Identifying Emerging E-cigarette Brands and Flavors on Twitter: Observational Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Flavored electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have become very popular in recent years. E-cigarette users like to share their e-cigarette products and e-cigarette use (vaping) experiences on social media. E-cigarettes marketing and promotions are also prevalent online.
Objective:
This study aimed to monitor e-cigarette brands and flavors mentioned on Twitter from May 2021 to December 2021, as well as identify new e-cigarette brands and flavors mentioned on Twitter.
Methods:
We collected 1.9 million tweets related to e-cigarettes between May 3rds 2021 and December 31st, 2021, using Twitter streamline interface. Commercial and non-commercial tweets were characterized based on promotion-related keywords. The depletion method was used for identifying new e-cigarette brands mentioned in tweets from period 2 (September 1st, 2021, to December 31st, 2021) by comparing with tweets from period 1 (May 3rd, 2021, to August 31st, 2021) as well as our previously established database on e-cigarette brands and flavors. Keyword matching was used for identifying new e-cigarette flavors between the two periods. Longitudinal trends of the number of tweets mentioning e-cigarette brands and flavors were examined in both commercial and non-commercial tweets.
Results:
Through the depletion method, we identified 34 new e-cigarette brands and 56 new e-cigarette flavors from commercial tweets as well as 42 new e-cigarette brands and 165 new e-cigarette flavors from non-commercial tweets. The longitudinal trend of e-cigarette brands showed that JUUL was the most popular e-cigarette brand mentioned on Twitter, however, there is a decreasing trend of mentioning JUUL over time on Twitter. Menthol is the most popular e-cigarette flavor mentioned in commercial tweets, whereas mango is the most popular e-cigarette flavor mentioned in non-commercial tweets.
Conclusions:
Our proposed depletion method can successfully identify new e-cigarette brands and flavors mentioned on Twitter. Twitter data can be used to monitor the dynamic changes in the popularity of e-cigarette brands and flavors.
Citation
