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Socializing is one of the main motivations for water pipe smoking. Restrictions on social gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic might have influenced water pipe smokers’ behaviors. As one of the most popular social media platforms, Reddit has been used to study public opinions and user experiences.
In this study, we aimed to examine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on public perception and discussion of water pipe tobacco smoking using Reddit data.
We collected Reddit posts between December 1, 2018, and June 30, 2021, from a Reddit archive (PushShift) using keywords such as “waterpipe,” “hookah,” and “shisha.” We examined the temporal trend in Reddit posts mentioning water pipes and different locations (such as homes and lounges or bars). The temporal trend was further tested using interrupted time series analysis. Sentiment analysis was performed to study the change in sentiment of water pipe–related posts before and during the pandemic. Topic modeling using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was used to examine major topics discussed in water pipe–related posts before and during the pandemic.
A total of 45,765 nonpromotion water pipe–related Reddit posts were collected and used for data analysis. We found that the weekly number of Reddit posts mentioning water pipes significantly increased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (
This study provides a first evaluation of the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public perceptions of and discussions about water pipes on Reddit.
Water pipe tobacco, also known as “hookah,” is a combustible tobacco product usually used in a group setting [
Similar to many other tobacco products, WTS is related to many health issues, including lung cancer, respiratory illness, low birth weight, and periodontal disease, as well as bronchitis, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and mental health [
It has been shown that smoking behaviors were affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic [
As of January 2021, Reddit had more than 50 million daily active users, 100,000 active communities, and 13 billion posts and comments [
In this study, we aimed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced public perceptions and discussions of water pipe tobacco smoking on Reddit through interrupted time series (ITS) data analyses, sentiment analyses, and topic modeling. More importantly, we aimed to investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on water pipe smoking behaviors, such as reducing use in hookah lounges or bars during the pandemic, given water pipes are commonly smoked during social events. Our study provides an initial but important evaluation of the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on water pipe perception and discussion, as well as potential water pipe behavior changes, through social media data mining.
Reddit posts (comments) from December 1, 2018, to June 30, 2021, were downloaded from a Reddit archive (PushShift). We extracted posts related to water pipes using a set of keywords from a previous study [
A multi-filter process was used to preprocess the Reddit data. First, we applied a filter to obtain all the posts written in English. Second, we applied additional filters to ensure that all posts were related to water pipes. For example, Reddit posts that contained “shisha octane,” “waterpipe shotgun,” and “hookah attack” were discussing games like
To determine whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected water pipe smoking behavior due to restrictions on social gatherings, we conducted a location analysis. We constructed a location data set for Reddit posts that mentioned specific locations according to the most common locations of water pipe smoking mentioned in the posts. First, we performed an item count that included single words, bigrams, and trigrams. Then, we manually examined the items with high frequency to identify location-related items. We classified these items into 2 main categories:
To study trends in the discussion of water pipe tobacco on Reddit, we calculated the number of water pipe–related Reddit posts per week, as well as the number of Reddit posts that mentioned either
We generated a sentiment score for each post using VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner). VADER is designed for qualitative sentiment analysis of social media using a list of lexical features combined with rules about conventions for expressing emotions [
To identify and compare the topics discussing water pipes on Reddit, we performed topic modeling using the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model on posts made before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The LDA model is a generative statistical model that can be used to find topics in documents [
Only publicly available Reddit posts were used for this study. There was no identifying information on Reddit users in this study. To protect human subjects included in this study, this study was reviewed and approved by the Research Subjects Review Board of the Office for Human Subject Protection at the University of Rochester (STUDY00006570).
From 62,699 Reddit posts extracted from the Reddit archive based on water pipe–related keywords, we identified 56,462 English Reddit posts, among which 51,387 were related to water pipes. Further removal of promotion posts resulted in 45,765 Reddit posts related to water pipes, which were used for further analysis. To understand trends in the discussion of water pipes on Reddit over time, we examined the number of posts related to water pipe tobacco per week from December 1, 2018, to June 30, 2021 (
To examine whether the pandemic had any impact on the location of water pipe tobacco use, we first identified posts mentioning the 2 most common locations for water pipe use, homes and lounges or bars (
Longitudinal trend in Reddit posts related to water pipes.
Longitudinal trend in the proportion of water pipe–related Reddit posts mentioning either
To understand whether the COVID-19 pandemic had any impact on the sentiments of water pipe–related posts, we performed a sentiment analysis of water pipe–related posts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, 59.14% (12,526/21,182) of posts had a positive attitude, 21.44% (4541/21,182) of posts had a negative attitude, and 19.43% (4115/21,182) of posts had a neutral attitude. After the pandemic, 59.74% (14,686/24,583) of posts had a positive attitude, 21.01% (5164/24,583) of posts had a negative attitude, and 19.25% (4733/24,583) of posts had a neutral attitude. Further statistical analysis using 2-proportion
LDA topic modeling was used to identify popular topics related to water pipes on Reddit before and during the pandemic. As shown in
Topics discussed in water pipe–related Reddit posts (n=21,182) before the pandemic.
Topic | Percentage of tokens, n (%) | Keywords | Example quotations |
Friends spending time together | 3220 (15.2) | friend, time, back, guy, start, day, feel, leave, year, end |
“Looking through this thread and seems to be like I’m in the minority. I do, and I do it a lot. Granted, only with my close friends, but I have quite a few of those. We call them “heart to hearts”, and they are usually accompanied by whiskey, hookah, and petting my too-needy-but-cute-as-shit pittie.” “I took the truck back after he was done camping one night and went to the hookah bar with a friend and to the location and back windows were wide open and we had our shirts over our mouths as we were yelling in fear the entire drive...” |
Hookah culture in different countries | 2284 (10.78) | people, man, thing, give, post, life, find, world, show, country |
“In Bosnia, hookah is known as Shisha. A lot of Bosnians have moved to Germany, more than any other European country, so maybe that’s why.” “I’m from the middle east. Our culture includes: Hookah, Thobes.... Making houses out of fur (usually for camping). The shit stuff you’re thinking about is islam.” |
Discussion about waterpipe accessories | 3064 (14.46) | water, make, work, put, pipe, long, hit, water pipe, bit, bong |
“Solo 2 is so good... get the 14mm water pipe adaptor for it and it’s a vong beast!” “When washing your bowl (if you’re like me who smokes 100 flavor on same bowl and same hookah). Fully wash the bowl with hot water, use normal towel to dry it, and place it on stove to fully dry it.” |
Getting bad feelings when using waterpipe tobacco with other substances | 3755 (17.73) | smoke, hookah, tobacco, cigarette, smoking, vape, bad, weed, time, nicotine |
“Almost sitting “My girlfriend made me try weed before I tried LSD, even though I had no interest in weed at all. I really don’t like weed at all. It feels like it clouds my mind, and I feel like I am too heavy…I have smoked hookah for years, so when I went to smoke weed, I kept clearing the bowl in one hit... Apparently that isn’t good to do for a first timer.” |
Smoking hookah at hookah bars/lounges | 4114 (19.42) | bar, hookah, good, lounge, place, lot, hooka, great, love, pretty |
“Hound dogs pizza! If you’re a smoker hookah bars are usually open really late. Also diners are a good option, fitzys on shrock rd is 24 hours and waffle house and steak and shake.” “More than Fumari and Starbuzz I see. I wonder if it is allowed to be smoked at the hookah lounges in US.” |
Discussion about coal and shisha flavor | 4745 (22.4) | hookah, bowl, good, shisha, coal, buy, hose, flavor, clean, brand |
“Sorry, never personally tried Starbuzz Carbine, cannot really compare the draw differences between them...” “Serbetli amazing shisha, strong flavor and thick clouds!” |
Topics discussed in water pipe–related Reddit posts (n=24,583) during the pandemic.
Topic | Percentage of tokens, n (%) | Keywords | Example quotations |
Friends spending time together | 3453 (14.05) | friend, people, guy, talk, play, back, life, call, time, show |
“Before I moved here from Omaha I used to frequent the hookah lounge all the time!... My boyfriend and I were thinking about going to one of them the other night but didn’t know which one was gonna be the best option at the time. I’ll definitely have to check out both though!” “This was just a few weeks ago. Met a girl through hanging with mutual friends at a hookah bar. We spent a couple hours talking to each other, and she asked our friend to give her my number...” |
Getting bad feelings when using waterpipe tobacco with other substances | 3651 (14.85) | smoke, time, people, feel, day, year, smoking, bad, cigarette, weed |
“I think it can be done. I do hookah sometimes. That doesn’t mean I’m ever smoking again! I even, can’t stand the smell of cigarettes anymore. In your experience and your strength, there are no rules!” “Smoke a cigarette or cigar or hookah or vape-tobacco, marijuana, herbal, or ANYTHING!! YUCK! Smelly! Stinky! Obnoxious! And Cancer!... did I mention lung cancer??” |
Discussion about coal and shisha flavor | 3662 (14.9) | tobacco, bowl, smoke, hookah, coal, shisha, flavor, water, taste, heat |
“Anything by Mason Shishaware. The Gravyl bowl is the best hookah bowl I’ve ever smoked hands down.” “It depends on what do you like ( I like mixing dark leaf with white, using neutral flavors of dark leaf (dark side tobacco ( as base (grapefruit, orange, banana ( and add strong tastes of daily hookah (exotic fruits, different cocktails, mint, Red Bull)” |
Opening and closing hookah bars/lounges | 4430 (18.02) | bar, lounge, place, night, open, home, back, sit, room, close |
“til not all non-essential businesses were told to close my distant cousins hookah cafe in a city centre in jabodetabek is apparently still open” “I really miss Hookah since I usually go out to those shops to smoke em. How much would it cost to buy home a hookah set?” |
Discussion about waterpipe accessories | 4841 (19.69) | Hookah, hose, buy, pipe, make, glass, clean, quality, base |
“By whip, do you mean like a hookah hose? If so, I LOVE concentrates through one. ZC Glass makes some sweet parts if you ever need splitters or new mouthpieces.” “Glass Lung sells hookah style mason jar bongs that have 2 14 mm female adapters so you can attach a whip and a bowl to. They’re pretty cool.” |
Good feelings about hookah | 4546 (18.49) | Hookah, good, work, love, pretty, great, lol, hit, hooka, big |
“Wow, I love the way this hookah looks. Especially the ‘vase’! Hot damn I want that!” “That’s pretty awesome! I have a Starbuzz Carbine that has the 360 degree swivel...very nice feature!” |
In this study, we showed that the discussion of water pipes on Reddit was gradually increasing until the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then gradually decreased during the pandemic. There was more discussion about water pipes on Reddit during the pandemic than before the pandemic. While the proportion of posts mentioning water pipe use at home did not change during the study period, the proportion of posts mentioning water pipe use at lounges or bars significantly decreased at the beginning of the pandemic, and gradually increased. Positive water pipe–related posts were dominant, and this did not change with the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion on water pipes was similar before and during the pandemic. There was more discussion about the opening and closing of hookah bars and lounges during the pandemic.
By examining trends in all water pipe–related posts on Reddit and performing an ITS analysis, we showed that the number of posts related to water pipe tobacco had a growing trend before the pandemic. The announcement of COVID-19 as a global pandemic had a positive effect on this increasing trend, which might be due to the discussion of pandemic lockdowns. After the sharp increase at the beginning of the pandemic, the number of related posts started to decrease.
Our findings are aligned with those of a study on smoking in Saudi Arabia that concluded that the use of cigarettes and water pipe tobacco has slightly decreased while e-cigarette use has significantly increased since the pandemic [
In this study, we used location-specific keywords to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mentions of different locations (hookah bars/lounges or home). This may be the first study to use social media data to examine how the pandemic affected water pipe use. Our temporal analysis showed that the proportion of discussions about hookah lounges and bars significantly decreased at the beginning of the pandemic and slowly increased during the pandemic. This trend aligns with the timeline for the pandemic: major lockdowns started in March 2020, when the state of California issued a stay-at-home order; then, in May 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidance for reopening the country, followed by the gradual reopening of the economy in the United States [
Most of the Reddit posts related to water pipes had positive sentiments in our study. Sentiment analysis of water pipe–related posts on Twitter showed that 59.5% (352,116/591,792) of tweets had a positive attitude, while 30% (177,537/591,792) had a negative attitude, and 10.5% (62,139/591,792) had a neutral attitude [
By comparison, we showed that the most popular topics in water pipe–related posts were similar before and during the pandemic, including “friends spending time together while smoking waterpipe tobacco,” discussions about waterpipe-related products,” and “getting bad feelings when using waterpipe tobacco with other substances like cigarettes and weed.” However, we did notice that while discussion of hookah bars and lounges was present in posts both before and during the pandemic, the focus of the discussion shifted to the opening and closing of hookah bars and lounges after the pandemic started. In addition, before the pandemic people frequently posted and discussed hookah culture around the world, and this became less popular during the pandemic. The great number of travel bans and restrictions caused by the pandemic might be one of the possible reasons for this change [
There are several limitations to our study. First, as the majority of Reddit users are from North America, our data set may not be representative of the global discussion about water pipes during the pandemic [
Our study provides a thorough analysis of the potential influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on public perceptions and discussions about water pipes on Reddit by performing temporal analysis and comparing sentiments and topics discussed before and during the pandemic. Our findings show that during the pandemic, especially during lockdowns, mentions of opening or closing of hookah bars and lounges on Reddit gradually increased, suggesting that people were searching for collaborative activities, such as water pipe tobacco smoking in hookah bars and lounges with their friends. Our study shows the potential impact of the pandemic on water pipe tobacco smoking, such as the closing of hookah bars and lounges; this might create an opportunity for public health authorities to communicate with the public during lockdowns about what kind of health collaborative activities they should search for instead of water pipe tobacco smoking. Our study also provides another valid data source obtained from social media for studying the pandemic and any other important public health issues, considering the increasing prevalence of social media use in the modern world.
Food and Drug Administration
interrupted time series
latent Dirichlet allocation
National Institutes of Health
Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner
water pipe tobacco smoking
The research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (award U54CA228110). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or the FDA.
The data sets and scripts generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available on request from the corresponding author (DL).
ZX, MG, and DL conceived and designed the study. ZZ analyzed the data. ZZ and ZX wrote the manuscript. ZX, MG, IR, and DL assisted with interpretation of analyses and edited the manuscript. All authors have approved the final article.
MG received a research grant from Pfizer and also served as a member of the scientific advisory board of Johnson & Johnson.