An Exploratory Investigation of the Links Between Colleges Students’ Social Networking Site Use and Problem Drinking

• In Event: Children, Adolescents, and Media: Research Escalator 1

Abstract

Posting alcohol-related content on social networking sites is associated with increased alcohol use, even problem drinking, among college students (e.g., Moreno, Christakis, Egan, Brockman, & Becker, 2012). Problem drinking is associated with driving under the influence, alcohol poisoning, physical sexual assault (Hingson, Zha, & Weitzman, 2009), as well as alcohol abuse and dependency (Jennison, 2004) and even death (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2013). Numerous interventions have been enacted to combat problem drinking (c.f., Careya, Scott-Sheldonc, Elliotte, Gareya, & Carey, 2012), and the National Institutes of Health (2014) recently urged researchers to better understand the connections between social networking use and problem drinking. Thus, through an online survey of 348 undergraduate students at a mid-sized U.S. university, the present study explored what influences alcohol-related SNS use, the individual factors related to SNS use and problem drinking, and the SNS sites most related to drinking and its related consequences.

Authors

• Charee Thompson, Ohio University

• Lynsey Kluever Romo, North Carolina State University