JUUL's social media campaign resonates alarmingly with teens

(Reuters Health) – The popular e-cigarette brand JUUL is attracting an alarming number of teens online, researchers say. At least a quarter of JUUL's twitter followers may be under 18, they write in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

JUUL's Twitter messages, amplifying the company's reach to a teen hearing, researchers reported.

"JUUL says it's not trying to target teens, but you can see that this is the audience's Twitter audience are under 18," said Dr. Kar-Hai Chu, an badistant professor of medicine at the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "I think we should be very worried about this."

The new findings bolster anecdotal evidence that JUUL has become popular among teens. "The major reason we are going to be a lot of anecdotal evidence of kids using JUUL and getting addicted" Chu said. "We wanted to systematically look at it."

Experts say part of JUUL's appeal to teens may be the way the product looks and it's marketed. The device looks like a flash drive and it can be plugged into a computer to recharge. It is available in many colors and comes in an attractive package. The e-liquid comes in numerous youth-friendly flavors, such as mango and fruit medley, and is packaged in a "pod."

This review was originally written in French and translated by To view the original text in French (translated from French). 3,239 from JUUL's official Twitter account between February 2017 and January 2018. These tweets were retweeted 1,124 times by 721 unique Twitter users. Trained human coders reviewed each of the user's Twitter profiles to determine if the individual was under age 18. Their job was easy when the user specified his or her age. If not, then the coder looked for clues in the user's tweets, such as if the user mentioned a grade level or an age-specific event in a tweet, such as, "I'm excited about my upcoming sweet 16." was any doubt, the user was categorized as an adult.

The researchers determined that out of 681 retweeters for whom we could have been estimated, 171 were under 18, with 107 identified as "followers" of JUUL on Twitter. It is not clear that all these retweeters are actual users of the product, however.

"Determining that is a next step for us," Chu said. "What they are posting on social media does not mean they're using JUUL. We're just looking at their exposure to the messages. We can not say if they had an intention to buy it. "

In a statement to Reuters Health, a JUUL spokesperson Labs said the company has "taken numerous actions to prevent and fight against the effects of social exclusion". accounts. . . we have also aggressively worked with social media platforms to remove and account for our portrayal of our product in a unauthorized and youth-oriented manners. "

Still, the new findings "are in line with what we hear anecdotally and what we are observing in the world," said Dr. Michael Blaha, a researcher who specializes in the epidemiology of e-cigarette use and its Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease in Baltimore, Maryland.

"JUUL comes in a smaller size so it's easier to conceal," Blaha said. "It's got a 'cool' factor, between the skin colors and the flavors. I've been told their approach is more like the Apple approach. And somehow they've made that simple connection with kids. "

As a general rule, the vapors inhaled by e-cigarette users contain a higher dose of nicotine than traditional cigarettes, Blaha said. But, "I'm sure many kids do not view this as a tobacco product," he added. "I meet a lot of people in my research who do not think it's a tobacco product. So they are thinking about smoking, but vaping is different. "

"Dr. Luke Benventuo, a transplant transplantologist with the Center for Lung Disease and Transplantation at New York-Presbyterian / Columbia University's Irving Medical Center in New York, said Dr. Luke Benventuo said," These are definitely reminiscent of the tobacco companies. York City. "I'm pretty concerned."

"The consequences of inhaling vapor is a huge unknown," Benventuo said.

Moreover, even if you're not getting all the cigarettes, "you do get nicotine," Benventuo said. "There are lots of studies that show nicotine is dangerous and toxic to the adolescent brain."

SOURCE: bit.ly/2JaRKta Journal of Adolescent Health, online October 19, 2018.