Sharing Tobacco and E-Cigarette Information: Predicting its Occurrence and Valence among Youth and Young Adults

While interpersonal communication has been shown to influence smoking-related outcomes, mostly in the context of interventions, there is not much research showing what drives young people to talk about tobacco or e-cigarettes. Additionally, the changing media environment calls for research that expands the scope of what is included as interpersonal communication to include not just conversations but also online forms of communicating information. This study puts forth sharing as such a concept, and examines its prevalence and predictors in the context of tobacco and e-cigarette information. Using a nationally representative rolling cross-sectional (N = 9,115) and recontact (N = 2,413) survey of 13–25-year olds, this study found that most young people shared negatively about tobacco (56% of 1,514 tobacco sharers at Time 1) and mixed information about e-cigarettes (41% of 968 e-cigarette sharers). Sharing occurrence was predicted by topical relevance and recent exposure to information, while pro-tobacco and pro-e-cigarette sharing (compared to no sharing) were predicted by relevance, and descriptive and injunctive norms. Significant moderation analyses showed that perceived norms undermined the effect of relevance on the valence in which one shared about tobacco and e-cigarettes. These findings provide a foundation upon which to build subsequent research on the impact of sharing, which could help inform future tobacco and e-cigarette control efforts.