The Influence of Social Media Usage on Attitudes toward Tobacco Use among Adolescents in Ghana

Abstract

One of the key indicators of attitudes toward tobacco use among adolescents is their use of social media. In low- and middle-income countries, including Ghana, attitudes toward tobacco use are influenced by adolescent exposure to tobacco-related information on social media, demographics, and psycho-social dynamics. Using information from the 2017 Impact Assessment on Social Marketing (IASMG), this study examines the relationship between adolescent Ghanaians' use of social media and their attitudes toward smoking. In this study, a sample of 7,054 adolescent boys and girls was analyzed. The analysis was done in three stages. A descriptive study of the sample population's demographic and psycho-social characteristics was provided using univariate analysis. The associations between the independent variable, the control variables, the dependent variables, and the mediating factors were all studied in the bivariate analysis. Binary logistic regression was subsequently used to determine the factors that predicted attitudes toward tobacco usage in this sample. The analysis determined that 49% of social media users had favorable attitudes toward tobacco use. At the bivariate level, there was a statistically significant association between respondents' sex, place of residence, wealth index, tobacco knowledge, tobacco use among friends, and attitudes toward tobacco use, except in the case of religion, tobacco use among family members, friends, and peer influence. The results of the first model at the multivariate level, where binary logistic regression models were fitted at two levels, indicate that adolescent social media use was significantly associated with their attitudes toward tobacco use. The study recommends that more education on the negative consequences of tobacco use be implemented on social media to ensure that adolescents avoid tobacco use consumption by having attitudes toward it.