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Social Media for Tobacco Smoking Cessation Intervention: A Review of the Literature

  • Tobacco (K Garrison, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Addiction Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 10 May 2019

This article has been updated

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Social media platforms have the potential to reach large audiences and deliver intervention content in an interactive format. Yet, little is known about the efficacy of social media for smoking cessation treatment or which specific features best promote participant engagement and behavior change. This article seeks to evaluate the current literature on the use of social media interventions to support smoking cessation.

Recent Findings

Findings suggest that social media interventions are feasible and can be utilized effectively for smoking cessation treatment. Greater participant engagement with intervention content appears to be associated with positive changes in smoking behaviors in most, but not all studies reviewed.

Summary

Smoking cessation interventions on social media hold promise to help smokers quit. Future randomized trials with longer follow-up intervals are needed to expand the current evidence base, as are studies that systematically investigate strategies to improve participant engagement with interventions.

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Change history

  • 10 May 2019

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Funding

This work was supported in-part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA; T32 DA007292, T32 DA007250).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Johannes Thrul & Kayla N. Tormohlen

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA

    Meredith C. Meacham

Authors
  1. Johannes Thrul
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  2. Kayla N. Tormohlen
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  3. Meredith C. Meacham
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Johannes Thrul.

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Declaration of Interests

No conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

No primary data with human or animal subjects were collected for this article. All included studies performed by the authors of this review were approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of California, San Francisco.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Tobacco

The original version of this article was revised: The sentence should be "… studies, one of which used WhatsApp in addition to Facebook. Two studies used Twitter. QuitNet, an online…" instead of "...studies one of which used WhatsApp in addition to Facebook, and two studies used Twitter, and one other used WhatsApp in addition to Facebook. QuitNet, an online..."

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Thrul, J., Tormohlen, K.N. & Meacham, M.C. Social Media for Tobacco Smoking Cessation Intervention: A Review of the Literature. Curr Addict Rep 6, 126–138 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-019-00246-2

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