Investigating Drug Addiction Discourse on YouTube

Drug addiction has become one of the most severe social problems in the United States. Recent research has turned attention to the possibility of using social media to detect opioid usages and offer interventions. However, most prior studies focus on textual and networking-based social media such as Twitter and Facebook. There is limited understanding of how video-based platforms, such as YouTube, allow creators to share drug addiction-related videos and discourse addiction problems. This work is an initial step to fill this knowledge gap by analyzing 166 YouTube videos. We found that YouTubers leverage videos to disclose personal addiction experiences, provide professional recommendations, and express addiction-related opinions and lifestyles. Therefore YouTube videos discuss more of the risks, blames, and solutions of drug addiction. *Trigger warning: this paper contains substance abuse, addiction, and mental illness.