Distracted driving on YouTube: implications for adolescents.

Abstract

For the first time in 50 years, traffic fatalities have increased in the United States (US). With the emergence of technology, comes the possibility, that distracted driving has contributed to a decrease in safe driving practices. The purpose of this study was to describe the content on the popular video sharing site, YouTube to ascertain the type of content conveyed in videos that are widely viewed. The 100 most widely viewed English language videos were included in this sample, with a collective number of views of over 35 million. The majority of videos were television-based and Internet-based. Pairwise comparisons indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the number of views of consumer generated videos and television-based videos (p = 0.001) and between television-based videos and Internet-based videos (p < 0.001). Compared with consumer generated videos, television-based videos were 13 times more likely to discuss cell phone use as a distractor while driving, while Internet-based videos were 6.6 times more likely to discuss cell phone use as a distractor while driving. In addition, compared with consumer generated videos, television-based videos were 3.67 times more likely to discuss texting as a distractor while driving, whereas Internet-based videos were 8.5 times more likely to discuss texting as a distractor while driving. The findings of this study indicate that the videos on YouTube related to distracted driving are popular and that this medium could prove to be a successful venue to communicate information about this emergent public health issue.