Social Media Depictions of Cochlear Implants: An Instagram and TikTok Analysis

To identify populations of authors who post about cochlear implants (CIs) on Instagram and TikTok, to illustrate the content of these posts, and to elucidate factors that might help surgeons better educate CI patients.

Qualitative study.

Instagram and TikTok social media platforms.

All public social media posts identified with the search terms below. Posts were excluded if unrelated to CIs or if written in a non-English language.

Instagram and TikTok were searched for posts from March 2021 through September 2021 with the search terms #cochlearimplant, #cochlearimplants, #cochlearimplantkids, #cochlearkids, and #cochlearfamily.

Posts were subclassified and analyzed for content including topics of posts, authorship, timeframe of posts, depiction of CIs, and popularity.

Of 1,942 posts included in the final analysis, 1,400 were found on Instagram and 542 on TikTok. Authors were mostly patients (n = 771, 39.7%), companies (n = 568, 29.2%), and patients' family members (n = 482, 24.8%). Only 21 posts were made by physicians (1.1%). Out of 379 total educational posts examined, patients themselves were the most common authors (n = 219, 57.8%) followed by patients' family members (n = 139, 36.7%). Physicians authored only a small fraction of all educational posts (n = 19, 5.0%).

This study showed minimal physician involvement in the CI social media spheres of Instagram and TikTok. In addition, there were few educational posts on either platform, revealing ample opportunity for physicians to become more involved with CI social media.