Investigating #vapingcessation in Twitter

Abstract

Objectives: Evidence suggests that an increasing number of e-cigarette users report intentions and attempts to quit vaping. Since exposure to e-cigarette-related content on social media may influence e-cigarette and other tobacco product use behavior, including potentially e-cigarette use cessation, we aimed to explore vaping cessation-related posts on Twitter by utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods. Methods: We collected tweets pertaining to vaping cessation for the time between January 2022 and December 2022 using snscrape. Tweets were scraped for the following hashtags: #vapingcessation, #quitvaping, and #stopJuuling. We analyzed data using Azure Machine Learning and Nvivo 12 software. Results: Sentiment analysis revealed that vaping cessation-related tweets typically embody positive sentiments and tend to originate mainly in the U. S. and Australia. The qualitative analysis identified six emerging themes across the tweets analyzed: support for vaping cessation, promotion of vaping cessation, barriers and benefits to vaping cessation, personal experiences with vaping cessation, and usefulness of peer support for vaping cessation. Conclusion: Our findings imply that improved dissemination of evidence-based vaping cessation strategies to a broad audience through Twitter may help promote vaping cessation at the population level.