Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 27, 2025

A Microcontroller Operated Device for the Generation of Liquid Extracts from Conventional Cigarette Smoke and Electronic Cigarette Aerosol
Published on: January 18, 2018
Discussion of waterpipe tobacco smoking on reddit
Zihe Zheng1, Zidian Xie2, Dongmei Li2
1Goergen Institute for Data Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
Objectives:
This study aimed to examine public discussions of waterpipe tobacco smoking, as well as the potential associations of different waterpipe flavors with health symptoms, using Reddit data.
Study Design:
This is an observational infodemiology study.
Methods:
Using keywords such as "waterpipe", "hookah", and "shisha", Reddit posts were extracted from Reddit Archive (pushshift.io) between February 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020. Temporal analysis was used to understand the longitudinal trend of the discussions about waterpipe tobacco smoking. Topic modeling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model was performed to examine the topics on waterpipe tobacco. We estimated the conditional probability of having each health problem for each given waterpipe flavor.
Results:
The discussion of waterpipe on Reddit was slowly decreasing from 2016 to 2018 and surged until May 2020. The fruit was the most popular waterpipe flavor and the neurological symptom was the most mentioned health category in waterpipe-related Reddit posts. The most popular topics included "Friends spending time together at night with waterpipe smoking", "Playing games and smoking waterpipe at a hookah bar", and "Discussing waterpipe flavors and related products". Some waterpipe flavors were more associated with certain health problems than others. For example, mint/menthol flavor had a high probability to be associated with symptoms related to throat and mouth.
Conclusion:
This study provided longitudinal surveillance of waterpipe tobacco smoking discussed on Reddit. We showed the potential relationship between waterpipe flavors and health symptoms, which provides preliminary evidence about the potential health effects of waterpipe tobacco smoking.
Related Concept Videos
Single Pipe Systems
In a Type I problem, fluid properties (density and viscosity), pipe characteristics (including diameter, length, and surface roughness), and the flow rate or average velocity are...
General Characteristics of Pipe Flow I
The classification of fluid...
Multiple Pipe Systems
Series Configuration
In a series configuration, fluid flows sequentially from one pipe...
General Characteristics of Pipe Flow II
The distance to reach a fully developed flow is called the entrance length and depends on the...
Stimulants
Cocaine can be administered via snorting, injection, or smoking. It primarily functions by blocking the reuptake of dopamine, resulting in a euphoric high characterized by an intense sensation of happiness and...
Pipe Flowrate Measurement
The orifice meter is a simple,...

