Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2020 Jan 23;6(1):e16833. doi: 10.2196/16833.
Electric scooters (e-scooters) have become a popular mode of transportation in both the United States and Europe. In the wake of this popularity, e-scooters have changed the commuting experience in many metropolitan areas. Although e-scooters offer an efficient and economical way to travel short distances in traffic-congested areas, recent studies have raised concerns over their safety. Bird and Tier Mobility are 2 popular e-scooter companies in the United States and Europe, respectively. Both companies maintain active social media accounts with hundreds of posts and tens of thousands of followers. Recent studies have shown that consumer behavior may be influenced by the content posted to popular social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter.
This study aimed to examine the official Instagram and Twitter accounts of Bird and Tier Mobility to determine whether these companies promote and demonstrate the use of safety gear in their posts to their consumers.
Posts to Bird's (n=287) and Tier Mobility's (n=190) official Instagram accounts, as well as Bird's (n=313) and Tier Mobility's (n=67) official Twitter accounts, were collected from November 9, 2018, to October 7, 2019. Rules for coding content of posts were informed by previous research.
Among posts to Bird's Instagram account, 69.3% (199/287) had a person visible with an e-scooter, 9.1% (26/287) contained persons wearing protective gear, and there were no mentions of protective gear in captions corresponding to the post. Among posts to Tier Mobility's Instagram account, 84.7% (161/190) contained a person visible with an e-scooter, 36.3% (69/190) contained persons wearing protective gear, and 4.2% (8/190) of captions corresponding to posts mentioned protective gear. Among posts to Bird's Twitter account, 71.9% (225/313) had an image, of which 44.0% (99/225) contained a person visible with an e-scooter and 15.1% (34/225) contained persons wearing protective gear. Among posts to Tier Mobility's Twitter account, 78% (52/67) had an image, of which 52% (27/52) contained a person with an e-scooter and 21% (11/52) contained persons wearing protective gear.
Findings show that modeling and promoting safety is rare on Bird's and Tier Mobility's official social media accounts, which may contribute to the normalization of unsafe riding practices. Social media platforms may offer a potential avenue for public health officials to intervene with rider safety campaigns for public education.
电动滑板车（e-scooters）在美国和欧洲已成为一种流行的交通方式。随着电动滑板车的普及，许多大都市的通勤体验发生了变化。尽管电动滑板车为在交通拥堵地区短途出行提供了高效、经济的方式，但最近的研究对其安全性提出了担忧。Bird 和 Tier Mobility 是美国和欧洲两家受欢迎的电动滑板车公司。这两家公司都在社交媒体上拥有活跃的账号，拥有数百个帖子和成千上万的粉丝。最近的研究表明，消费者行为可能会受到在 Instagram 和 Twitter 等热门社交媒体平台上发布的内容的影响。
本研究旨在检查 Bird 和 Tier Mobility 的官方 Instagram 和 Twitter 账号，以确定这些公司是否在其帖子中向消费者宣传和展示安全装备的使用。
从 2018 年 11 月 9 日至 2019 年 10 月 7 日，收集了 Bird（n=287）和 Tier Mobility（n=190）的官方 Instagram 帖子，以及 Bird（n=313）和 Tier Mobility（n=67）的官方 Twitter 帖子。帖子内容的编码规则是基于之前的研究。
在 Bird 的 Instagram 帖子中，69.3%（199/287）有一个人骑着电动滑板车，9.1%（26/287）的帖子中有佩戴护具的人，帖子的标题中没有提到护具。在 Tier Mobility 的 Instagram 帖子中，84.7%（161/190）有一个人骑着电动滑板车，36.3%（69/190）的帖子中有佩戴护具的人，4.2%（8/190）的帖子标题中提到了护具。在 Bird 的 Twitter 帖子中，71.9%（225/313）有图片，其中 44.0%（99/225）的图片中有一个人骑着电动滑板车，15.1%（34/225）的图片中有佩戴护具的人。在 Tier Mobility 的 Twitter 帖子中，78%（52/67）有图片，其中 52%（27/52）的图片中有一个人骑着电动滑板车，21%（11/52）的图片中有佩戴护具的人。
研究结果表明，Bird 和 Tier Mobility 的官方社交媒体账号很少对安全进行示范和宣传，这可能导致不安全骑行行为的常态化。社交媒体平台可能为公共卫生官员提供了一个潜在的途径，可以通过开展公众安全教育活动来干预骑手的安全。
