Modern Substance Use, Modern Media Literacy:
What’s in Your Algorithm?
By: David Sherrell
For those of you whose parents or guardians lived in the United States in the late 1980's, ask them if they remember Spuds MacKenzie.
He was a Bud Light mascot and he was everywhere. Like, McDonald’s-level everywhere, just could not be avoided. Billboards, commercials, full-page “spreads” (magazine and newspaper advertisements), the occasional Super Bowl ad. And not without controversy – many people believed he was being used to market beer to children. Cigarette companies were receiving similar criticism at the same time; the Camel Cigarettes mascot Joe Camel was found in one study to be as recognizable to children as the Disney Channel logo!1
(I’m doing the drawing-the-mouse-ears motion in my mind right now. It's a habit.)
Ultimately, advertising practices that obviously target youth were outlawed. Companies found to violate this regulation got fined. And still, today, I’m writing to you to encourage your development of media literacy. To tell you that there is an entire science called advertising psychology that studies things like why and how people make choices, what sorts of things influence those choices, and how to wield those influences to encourage people to make purchases.
And to note that these companies are clever with their manipulations.
The rise of social media, and streaming taking over for network and cable TV, daunted entire industries – “How do we sell our products now? The kids aren’t watching TV.” Not the nicotine companies. Every time a platform or law changed to invalidate some strategy they were using, they adapted course faster than anything as bulky as an industry ought to be able to change. From the 1950’s, when “doctors” (models and actors in white coats) were recommending specific brands of cigarette, to today’s Zynfluencers, nicotine companies have always been able to stay within the boundaries of the law and the confines and terms of use of the most populated platforms to market their products.
And that makes sense, right? Think about the products themselves. In the 1990s, as I’ve said before, cigarette smoking started becoming unpopular. People had known for decades that it was bad for our health, and the rates of smoking in the population decreased over time, but the cool factor remained for quite a while. Once that began to change, though, it didn’t take long for smoking to become extremely uncool. But just in time for the youngest Millennials and oldest Gen-Zers to become the least-smokingest (not a word, I know) generation ever, along comes vaping. Initially, vapes were sold by small independent companies. They were like little tech startups – actually, when you think about the devices, they were little tech startups – disrupting the traditional “Big Tobacco” industry and driving customers toward their Next Big Thing. Rates of use went from “What’s vaping?” to “How do I convince my little brother to stop vaping?” within years. And not very long after that, when their entire industry should have been about as relevant as the Yellow Pages (Google it, then note the irony of having Googled the Yellow Pages), Big Tobacco simply bought the startups. So of course they and their peers in the advertising industry understand how and where to sell you their highly addictive, deadly drug now.
So, what's in your feed?
I hear all kinds of answers to this – adults often tell me, “The kids’ feeds are full of vaping ads. They’re all over TikTok.” (We’ll talk about this kind of all-or-nothing language in my next post, but for now know: just like “everybody’s doing it” is never true, “it’s all over TikTok” should make you suspicious.) I taught some tenth graders recently who told me differently – their answers ranged from “Yeah, I see it sometimes” to “I never see anything vaping-related.”
And again, that makes sense – we have a general sense of how The Almighty Algorithm works. It takes a basic read of who you are – your preferences and tendencies, what you click on, how long you spend on any given content type, a perhaps-disturbingly detailed amount of other related data about you – and shows you the content, including ads and influencers with their accompanying promos, that it “thinks” will appeal to you. (And all of this predates the rise of AI, remember – until recently, it was just very good math. Now, it’s very, very good and creepily predictive math.) So, if you see a bunch of vaping-related influencer and ad content in your feed, it’s because the algorithm thinks you’ll go for that, and the nicotine companies and their advertisers and influencers have coordinated to make sure there’s a great deal of such content for you to scroll past. If the algorithm thinks you’re unlikely to become someone who chooses to vape, whether now or in the future, they’ll probably show you what they think you’re more likely to spend your dollars on.
So, the question “What’s in your feed?” isn’t rhetorical. It’s something to consider from a media literacy standpoint.
Whether you’re seeing a lot, a little, or no vaping content, ask yourself – why am I seeing what I’m seeing? How might this be connected to my other choices and actions, on this platform or others? What is it that I’m choosing to look at, or choosing to avoid, that contributed to how much vaping-related content I’m seeing?
Next time we’re going to tackle some of the detailed questions you can ask yourself to apply media literacy analytical skills to any ad or promotional content.
References
DiFranza JR, Richards JW, Paulman PM, Wolf-Gillespie N, Fletcher C, Jaffe RD, et al. RJR Nabisco’s cartoon camel promotes Camel cigarettes to children. Jama. 1991;266(22):3149–53.