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Primary Submission Category: Public Health Communication and Trust
How Adolescents Interpret Contraceptive Content on Social Media: A Multi-State Qualitative Study
Authors: April Bell, Sativa Banks, Subasri Narasimhan,
Presenting Author: April Bell*
Background:
For many adolescents, social media serves as a routine source of health information. While prior research has documented exposure to online contraceptive content, less is known about how adolescents describe interpreting and integrating that content into their thinking about prescribed birth control. Examining youth accounts can clarify how digital information environments shape contraceptive meaning-making.
Methods:
We analyzed open-ended responses from 596 adolescents (mean age 19.9 years, SD 2.55) residing in 50 U.S. states and Washington, DC. The sample included 301 females (50.5%), 215 males (36.1%), and 80 gender-diverse youth (13.4%); 10.6% identified as Black, 15.6% Asian, 9.1% multiracial, and 13.2% Hispanic. Participants responded to the question: “How has social media affected your thoughts about prescribed birth control?” Using inductive thematic analysis, we identified recurring patterns in how adolescents describe encountering and evaluating contraceptive content.
Results:
Three patterns were prominent. First, participants frequently described exposure to narratives emphasizing side effects and hormonal harms, which shaped perceptions of risk. Second, adolescents highlighted the role of peer-generated content—including influencers and comment threads—in establishing informal norms about what forms of contraception are viewed as acceptable or “natural.” Third, many respondents described navigating conflicting or mixed messages, expressing uncertainty about how to assess credibility. Although some participants reported increased awareness of contraceptive options, accounts of cautionary or negative content were more common.
Conclusions:
Adolescents in this multi-state sample describe social media not only as a source of contraceptive information, but as a context in which meanings about risk, acceptability, and safety are negotiated. Public health efforts aimed at improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health may benefit from engaging with how youth interpret digital contraceptive narratives, rather than focusing solely on information provision.