LOS ANGELES, March 6 — Sharing tweets about the process of quitting smoking amongst others who are going through it could be the way to go for better health, say researchers in California.

“The Twitter environment created a sort of party dynamic,” says Cornelia Pechmann, a marketing professor at the University of California Irvine Paul Merage School of Business. “That’s especially important for social smokers.”

Twenty smokers looking to quit joined a group called Tweet2Quit, which proved to be engaging, for 78 per cent of members tweeted amongst each other at least once during the course of 100 days.

Auto-messages from trained counsellors were released as much as twice daily and served as icebreakers to get participants tweeting one another.

Participants averaged 72 tweets per person, and most of them — 60 per cent — continued to tweet after 30 days.

“In addition, group leaders naturally emerged, facilitating the online conversations,” says Pechmann, “These leaders played a critical role in keeping people engaged.”

In the end, 42 per cent of them quit smoking, according to the study.

Pechmann and her team adjusted the auto-messaging process and another experiment — also involving a group of 20 participants — had a success rate of 75 per cent.

Communication between members of the two Tweet2Quit groups took place online and each quitter was given a free supply of nicotine patches and instructed to tweet their group at least once per day.

Pechmann says the tweets held the smokers accountable for quitting and that social media is a promising self-help platform because of the easy access it provides to support, advice and triumph sharing. — AFP-Relaxnews