36 Exploring Instagram’s Impact on Nicotine and Cannabis Beliefs for Public Health: A Research Reflection

Faculty Mentor: Jessica Jensen (Health, University of Utah)

The College of Health is aptly named. It focuses on the health and well-being of our community in a multitude of different settings, including nutrition, exercise, and public health. As a future health care professional, I wanted to be a part of research to learn and understand more about public health and public health policy.

Dr. Jensen’s research focus is on tobacco control and tobacco control policies within the United States. I was able to contribute (data collection, coding, analysis, and writing) to several projects, including “Examining Cigar Pack Quantity Purchases by Cigar Type in the United States Between 2014 and 2017” and “Price, convenience, the buying experience, and other motivations for purchasing tobacco and e-cigarettes online.” Yet, in my own project, I wanted to go beyond just the worldwide web and explore how social media, in particular, is being used to perpetuate beliefs on nicotine and cannabis use.

Content on social media platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is created, posted, and shared at breakneck speeds. Not only is social media used to dictate new fads, but it is dramatically changing marketing strategies. Following my previous work with Dr. Jensen, I was concerned with how this phenomenon is impacting substance use, particularly among youth and young adults. I chose Instagram as the primary social media platform to explore because, as the old adage goes, “a picture is worth 1,000 words.” Instagram is also one of the most widely used social media platforms.

I wanted to explore what makes a nicotine or cannabis product post popular within the platform and evaluate the extent to which these posts are shared and viewed. I reviewed a variety of hashtags spanning different substances, including e-cigarettes, cigarettes, cigars, and cannabis. The results from this study highlight that posts regarding nicotine and cannabis products receive considerable exposure. Because social media represents a gray area in regards to abiding by FDA legislation, exposure to nicotine and cannabis products remains unregulated. The lack of warnings leaves youth and young adults vulnerable to perpetuated beliefs, such as “vaping is just flavored water.”

Additional regulation is needed in order to decrease the viewership of posts related to nicotine and cannabis products and to minimize youth exposure to such posts. For example, any post relating to vaping should not be viewable by individuals under the age of 18. Prevention campaigns targeting specific substances through hashtag usage can also be created based on the findings from this study. Future prevention-based posts should continue to incorporate aspects of what makes a post popular within a certain substance’s community (such as vaping) in order to increase anti-use campaign exposure and more directly influence behavior. For example, based on our findings, a prevention post to reduce cigarette usage on Instagram will likely obtain the most exposure if it features a white, young adult male.

Social media usage by the general population will continue to grow, and with it, the immediate perpetuation of potentially harmful behaviors, such as nicotine and cannabis usage. Reducing smoking, vaping, cannabis use, etc., is imperative from a public health perspective. Through its ability to rapidly target large audiences and specific substances, social media platforms, such as Instagram, represent the next frontier in minimizing usage and promoting community health.