{"id":123931,"date":"2020-08-03T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T19:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=123931"},"modified":"2020-07-31T13:30:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T23:30:20","slug":"instagrammed-betel-nut-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/08\/03\/instagrammed-betel-nut-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Instagrammed betel nut practices hint at relevant cessation strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/manoa-communications-betel-nut-study.jpg\" alt=\"betel nut\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-123932\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/manoa-communications-betel-nut-study.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/manoa-communications-betel-nut-study-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/manoa-communications-betel-nut-study-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A study out of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialsciences.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Social Sciences<\/a> (<abbr>CSS<\/abbr>) at the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> at M\u0101noa, discovered that people of Guam and the Marianas use the photo-sharing site Instagram to convey their offline practices of betel nut, also known as areca nut. The study by Communications Associate Professor <strong>Wayne Buente<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jmir.org\/2020\/7\/e13954\/\">was published in the July issue of the <em>Journal of Medical Internet Research<\/em><\/a>, the leading peer-reviewed journal for digital medicine, health and health care.<\/p>\n<p>A 2012 World Health Organization report recognized areca nut use as an urgent public health threat faced by peoples of the Western Pacific region. Betel nut chewing is known to cause a sense of euphoria, well-being, feelings of warmth and an increased capacity to work, in addition to a red-staining of the mouth. There are a number of health issues associated with betel nut consumption, most notably oral cancer.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Related <em>ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ News<\/em> story: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/07\/02\/uh-cancer-center-betel-nut-use\/\">Cancer researchers spotlight &lsquo;understudied&rsquo; betel nut use<\/a>, July 2, 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The study\u2019s findings emphasize the cultural significance of betel nut use in Micronesia and suggest that more research is needed to develop culturally relevant areca nut prevention and cessation programs.<\/p>\n<p>Buente and his co-researchers performed a content analysis of more than 250 Instagram posts with the hashtag #pugua, a local term for areca nut in the Marianas. A majority of #pugua content on Instagram featured the betel nut, betel palm tree or betel pepper leaves, as well as areca nut preparation practices.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As a form of networked visual communication, a single hashtag could have the potential to build and maintain social networks of people from Guam,&rdquo; Buente said. &ldquo;Our study explored how Chamorro cultural values and practices are manifested in #pugua content on Instagram.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Study findings<\/h2>\n<p>Since Instagram is a mobile app that encourages interactive engagement of content through likes and comments, research results determined that Instagram #pugua posts with moderate or high social engagement were centered on visual content privileging Chamorro culture, betel nut practices and the betel nut palm tree and leaves.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast to prior research, however, there was little evidence of actual betel nut use and consumption by the #pugua Instagram account posters, which is typically a prominent feature in marijuana, hookah and vaping content on image-based social media.<\/p>\n<p>Study co-authors were <strong>Hanae Kurihara Kramer<\/strong>, an associate professor of communication in <abbr>CSS<\/abbr>; <strong>Pallav Pokhrel<\/strong>, an associate professor, and <strong>Ian Pagano<\/strong>, an assistant specialist, at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhcancercenter.org\/\">ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½ Cancer Center<\/a>; and Francis Dalisay, an associate professor at the University of Guam.<\/p>\n<p>The research project was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers U54CA143727 and U54CA143728.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;By <em>Lisa Shirota<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instagram content featured the betel nut, betel palm tree or betel pepper leaves, as well as areca nut preparation practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[218,301,661,1363,158,741,1026,169,9],"class_list":["post-123931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-cancer","tag-college-of-social-sciences","tag-communications","tag-manoa-research","tag-publication","tag-school-of-communications","tag-social-science","tag-uh-cancer-center","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123940,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123931\/revisions\/123940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}