TY  - JOUR
AU  - Groshon, Laurie
AU  - Waring, Molly E
AU  - Blashill, Aaron J
AU  - Dean, Kristen
AU  - Bankwalla, Sanaya
AU  - Palmer, Lindsay
AU  - Pagoto, Sherry
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/3/4
TI  - A Content Analysis of Indoor Tanning Twitter Chatter During COVID-19 Shutdowns: Cross-Sectional Qualitative Study
JO  - JMIR Dermatol
SP  - e54052
VL  - 7
KW  - attitude
KW  - attitudes
KW  - content analysis
KW  - dermatology
KW  - opinion
KW  - perception
KW  - perceptions
KW  - perspective
KW  - perspectives
KW  - sentiment
KW  - skin
KW  - social media
KW  - sun
KW  - tan
KW  - tanner
KW  - tanners
KW  - tanning
KW  - tweet
KW  - tweets
KW  - Twitter
AB  - Background: Indoor tanning is a preventable risk factor for skin cancer. Statewide shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in temporary closures of tanning businesses. Little is known about how tanners reacted to losing access to tanning businesses. Objective: This study aimed to analyze Twitter (subsequently rebranded as X) chatter about indoor tanning during the statewide pandemic shutdowns. Methods: We collected tweets from March 15 to April 30, 2020, and performed a directed content analysis of a random sample of 20% (1165/5811) of tweets from each week. The 2 coders independently rated themes (κ=0.67-1.0; 94%-100% agreement). Results: About half (589/1165, 50.6%) of tweets were by people unlikely to indoor tan, and most of these mocked tanners or the act of tanning (562/589, 94.9%). A total of 34% (402/1165) of tweets were posted by users likely to indoor tan, and most of these (260/402, 64.7%) mentioned missing tanning beds, often citing appearance- or mood-related reasons or withdrawal. Some tweets by tanners expressed a desire to purchase or use home tanning beds (90/402, 22%), while only 3.9% (16/402) mentioned tanning alternatives (eg, self-tanner). Very few tweets (29/1165, 2.5%) were public health messages about the dangers of indoor tanning. Conclusions: Findings revealed that during statewide shutdowns, half of the tweets about indoor tanning were mocking tanning bed users and the tanned look, while about one-third were indoor tanners reacting to their inability to access tanning beds. Future work is needed to understand emerging trends in tanning post pandemic. 
SN  - 2562-0959
UR  - https://derma.jmir.org/2024/1/e54052
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/54052
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38437006
DO  - 10.2196/54052
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/54052
ER  -