Electronic cigarettes related videos on youtube

Background: A few studies have examined a small subset of e-cigarette videos on Youtube in the context of tobacco control, however, little is known about the extent of presence of e-cigarette videos on Youtube.

Methods: An automated crawling procedure was employed to collect the metadata associated with e-cigarette videos posted on Youtube between January 1 2007 and December 31 2012 using keyword rules. View counts, ratings, number of comments, and number of e-cigarette vides over time are examined.

Results: Approximately12,000 videos related to e-cigarettes were captured in the study period. Those videos were posted by about 3,700 Youtube users or accounts. They were viewed more than 66 million times, favored more than 72,000 times, and commented more than 174,000 times as of December 2012. The average view counts for these videos are 5,500 views per video, with the average rating of 2.9 on a 0-5 scale. The number of e-cigarette videos posted on Youtube per month has increased steadily since 2007, with about 300-400 videos posted on Youtube per month. However, in the March – April 2012 two-month period, more than 3,000 e-cigarette related videos were posted on Youtube, corresponding to the CDC's Tips from Former Smokers campaign. The vast majority of these videos were tagged to the “Technology,” “How To,” “People,” “Education,” and “Entertainment” categories.

Conclusions: Youtube is a major messaging and information-sharing social platform for electronic cigarettes. The presence and broad reach of e-cigarette videos on Youtube warrants serious attention from public health professionals and policy-makers.