YouTube Social Media Influencers Promote Inaccurate Birth Control Content, Study Finds

Most influencers on YouTube are promoting the discontinuation of hormonal birth control and promoting inaccurate medical information, according to a recent study. Unplanned pregnancies could result from adopting social media influencers’ contraception advice, according to new research, which found the content largely inaccurate and incomplete.Researchers from the University of Delaware discovered that YouTube searches presented information about discontinuing birth control rather than safe sex or contraception. The study was published in Health Communication and highlights how for some young adults, social media has become a main source of sexual health knowledge.This study was conducted to understand trends present in conversations on birth control by influencers creating YouTube vlogs, as little research on sexual health messages in social media has been analyzed. The study focused on non-hormonal modalities such as the Daysy device and app. The app tracks and monitors fertility, cycles, and health, and claimed to be 99.4% accurate by founders; this claims was later found to be false due to flawed methodologies and therefore dubious conclusions.For the study, researchers used “birth control experience” and “Daysy” for keyword search terms on videos uploaded between December 2019 to December 2021; 50 YouTube videos with a minimum of 20,000 subscribed viewers were
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