Shocking link between social media and youth vaping revealed: How firms are ... trends now
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Children who spend a lot of time on Instagram and TikTok are more likely to vape and smoke cigarettes, according to a new study.
Experts have discovered that the more time youngsters spend on social media, the more likely they are to pick up the habits.
This was particularly apparent at higher levels of use, with those on social media more than seven hours a day almost four times more likely to vape than non-users, and eight times more likely to smoke.
The study, published in the journal Thorax, included data for 10,808 people aged 10 to 25 in the UK.
Analysis revealed that 0.8 per cent of those not using social media vaped, rising to 2.4 per cent among those using it for one to three hours a day.
Youngsters who spend a long time on social media are more likely to take up vaping and smoking, researchers found
Vape companies are using social media sites like TikTok and YouTube to market addictive vapes to children
This rose to 3.8 per cent for those using social media four to six hours a day and 4 per cent for those using social media for more than seven hours a day.
Meanwhile, for smoking, 2 per cent of those who said they did not use social media reported current cigarette smoking, compared with 9.2 per cent who used social media
