ArticleAlcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire)2016
Alcohol Marketing on Twitter and Instagram: Evidence of Directly Advertising to Youth/Adolescents.
Article in Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire), 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Impact of food, beverage, and alcohol brand marketing on consumptive behaviors and health in children and adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Regulatory Policies on Online/Digital/Internet-Mediated Alcohol Marketing: a Systematic Review.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2023Pooled it
- Exposure to Digital Alcohol Marketing and Alcohol Use: A Systematic Review.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs. Supplement · 2020Pooled it
- Does Industry-Driven Alcohol Marketing Influence Adolescent Drinking Behaviour? A Systematic Review.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2017Pooled it
- Characterizing In Vivo Exposure to Alcohol Content in the Media: Media Platform, Engagement, and Associations With Attitudes.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2026Article
- Hidden Persuasion: Big Alcohol's Tactics on Social Media.Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Scrolling for science: Assessing the quality and accuracy of Crohn's disease-related content on Instagram reels.PloS one · 2026Article
- Real-Time Exposure to Alcohol Content in Digital Media in Adolescents: Protocol for a Multiburst Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Changing public perceptions of alcohol, alcohol harms and alcohol policies: A multi-methods study to develop novel framing approaches.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- Filtering reality: Navigating Instagram's influence on adolescent mental health.Journal of education and health promotion · 2025Review
- Concurrent Mentions of Vaping and Alcohol on Twitter: Latent Dirichlet Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Tobacco and Alcohol Content in Top Vietnamese YouTube Music Videos: Content Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Long-term trends in beverage-specific drinking in the National Alcohol Surveys: Differences by sex, age, and race and ethnicity.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Adolescents' perceptions of substance use messaging in the age of social media: resolving cognitive dissonance.Health education research · 2024Article
- Cross-substance Effects of Adolescent Exposure to Alcohol Content in Popular Movies on Cannabis Initiation.Cannabis (Albuquerque, N.M.) · 2024Article
- Social Media Use and Alcohol Sipping in Early Adolescents: A Prospective Cohort Study.Substance use & misuse · 2024Article
- Exposure to alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption among children and early teenagers in South Africa.BMC research notes · 2023Article
- Problematic social media use and alcohol expectancies in early adolescents.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Exposure to Alcohol-Related Content on Social-Media.Psychiatric research and clinical practice · 2023Article
- Capturing the bigger picture: A gestalt of general and alcohol-specific social media usage during the transition to college as a predictor of first-year alcohol use and consequences.Addictive behaviors · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsAssess whether alcohol companies restrict youth/adolescent access, interaction, and exposure to their marketing on Twitter and Instagram.
methodsEmployed five fictitious male and female Twitter (n = 10) and Instagram (n = 10) user profiles aged 13, 15, 17, 19 and/or 21. Using cellular smartphones, we determined whether profiles could (a) interact with advertising content-e.g. retweet, view video or picture content, comment, share URL; and/or (b) follow and directly receive advertising material updates from the official Instagram and Twitter pages of 22 alcohol brands for 30 days.
resultsAll user profiles could fully access, view, and interact with alcohol industry content posted on Instagram and Twitter. Twitter's age-gate, which restricts access for those under 21, successfully prevented underage profiles from following and subsequently receiving promotional material/updates. The two 21+ profiles collectively received 1836 alcohol-related tweets within 30 days. All Instagram profiles, however, were able to follow all alcohol brand pages and received an average of 362 advertisements within 30 days. The quantity of promotional updates increased throughout the week, reaching their peak on Thursday and Friday. Representatives/controllers of alcohol brand Instagram pages would respond directly to our underage user's comments.
conclusionThe alcohol industry is in violation of their proposed self-regulation guidelines for digital marketing communications on Instagram. While Twitter's age-gate effectively blocked direct to phone updates, unhindered access to post was possible. Everyday our fictitious profiles, even those as young as 13, were bombarded with alcohol industry messages and promotional material directly to their smartphones.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.