Majority of #alcohol movies on TikTok painting consuming in a optimistic mild

An awesome variety of in style TikTok movies that reference alcohol give attention to its optimistic associations and ignore the destructive ones, in accordance with a new examine within the Journal of Research on Alcohol and Medicine.

The highest 100 hottest movies on the social media platform utilizing the #alcohol hashtag had nearly 300 million mixed views as of 2020, the report notes. An awesome 98% of those movies contained optimistic portrayals of alcohol, whereas solely 4% described destructive alcohol-related penalties, in accordance with lead researcher Alex Russell, Ph.D., assistant professor of public well being within the Division of Well being, Human Efficiency and Recreation on the College of Arkansas.

“Social media platforms, equivalent to TikTok, can affect well being habits,” says Russell. “For instance, elevated youth publicity to alcohol advertising on social media is linked to earlier consuming initiation and higher ranges of general alcohol consumption. Greater than a 3rd of TikTok customers are underage, so we felt it was essential to characterize the content material and themes current in movies portraying alcohol on this in style platform.”

Russell and colleagues analyzed the 100 most-liked movies on TikTok’s #alcohol web page, which had 1.7 billion views as of 2020. Forty-one % of the movies had been information movies, giving recipes for numerous drinks. Most (72%) included spirits, 23% included flavored malt drinks, 16% included beer and 10% included wine.

Sixty-one % portrayed fast consumption of a number of drinks, equivalent to taking back-to-back photographs of liquor, then chugging from the bottle. Additionally they promoted the concept that alcohol consumption is related to friendship, familiarity and camaraderie. The few that did point out destructive associations—equivalent to hangovers or bodily damage—did so in a humorous, not academic, method.

Though TikTok’s neighborhood pointers prohibit content material that depicts the consumption of alcohol, medication or tobacco by minors, it is unclear how successfully this coverage is enforced.

Moreover, “these movies had been simply accessible via a easy web search and may very well be seen with out … encountering an age-verification course of,” the researchers write. “Any nonregistered individual can absolutely work together with alcohol movies on TikTok, no matter age.”

The takeaway from their analysis is threefold, says Russell.

First, “I might ask dad and mom if they need TikTok to be the place their children get well being data about matters equivalent to alcohol use,” says Russell. “I would encourage dad and mom to do a easy web search of “#alcohol TikTok” and see if they’re snug with the content material and messages their kids are uncovered to.”

Second, he would let public well being practitioners and researchers know that TikTok and different social media platforms are right here to remain. Nonetheless, public well being professionals can use these identical platforms to disseminate science in regards to the well being realities of alcohol use and to encourage vital analysis of alcohol-related messaging on social media.

And eventually, relating to public coverage, Russell says the benefit of entry to alcohol-related content material on TikTok highlights the necessity for some mechanism (equivalent to age verification) to attenuate youth publicity to alcohol-related content material on social media platforms.