Abstract
This article aims to investigate whether alcohol-related disclosure and exposure on social media can predict later alcohol use, and to identify covariates in these relationships. Data were collected by online surveys (two waves) among students in Bergen, Norway. The first survey was administered in fall 2015. The follow-up took place during fall 2016. A total of 5,217 students participated in both waves. The surveys included questions about demographics, personality, alcohol use, alcohol-related cognitions (e.g., attitudes and norms), social media use, and disclosure and exposure of alcohol on social media. Bivariate comparisons were conducted to assess differences in alcohol use between the frequent (i.e., monthly or more often) disclosure and exposure groups and low-frequent disclosure and exposure groups. Crude and adjusted linear regressions were employed to investigate if disclosure and exposure of alcohol could predict later alcohol use, when controlling for a range of covariates. Compared to the low-frequent disclosure and exposure groups, participants which frequently disclosed or were frequently exposed to alcohol-related content had higher alcohol use at baseline and 1 year later (p < 0.001), when no covariates were controlled for. Frequent disclosure of content reflecting positive aspects of alcohol predicted stable or slightly increased alcohol use at Time 2 (p < 0.01), even when all covariates (i.e., demographics, personality, alcohol use, alcohol-related cognitions, and social media use) were controlled for. In conclusion, frequent disclosure and/or exposure to alcohol-related content predicted alcohol use over time. Alcohol disclosure/exposure on social media could for the most part not predict later alcohol use when baseline alcohol use was controlled for. High alcohol use and alcohol disclosure/exposure on social media appear to be strongly intertwined, which hampers identification of directionality between alcohol use and disclosure/exposure. Disclosing content reflecting positive aspects of alcohol was the only independent variable that could predict further alcohol use when other factors, like baseline alcohol use, were held constant. This finding suggests that disclosure of alcohol content reflecting positive aspects of alcohol might have a self-enhancing effect on the sharers' further alcohol consumption, or that disclosing such content could indicate lenient alcohol-related cognitions not detected by the current measurements.
Highlights
Alcohol use can cause much harm to the individual user as well as to society (Hingson et al, 2002; Rehm et al, 2003, 2009)
We speculate that the larger reduction in alcohol use observed among some of the disclosure and exposure-groups could be explained by their initial high alcohol use, as individuals tend to regress toward group means over time (Bland and Altman, 1994)
The current findings suggest that disclosure and exposure primarily reflects baseline alcohol use, that high alcohol use predicts both disclosure and exposure to alcohol as well as further alcohol use
Summary
Alcohol use can cause much harm to the individual user as well as to society (Hingson et al, 2002; Rehm et al, 2003, 2009). Previous studies suggest that disclosure of alcoholrelated content on social media indicates concurrent alcohol use (Westgate et al, 2014; Geusens and Beullens, 2016), while exposure have in some studies been found to predict later alcohol use (Huang et al, 2014b; Boyle et al, 2016). The association between disclosure and exposure and alcohol use may depend on type of content shared or seen (van Hoof et al, 2014; Westgate and Holliday, 2016; Groth et al, 2017), but the relationship between different types of alcohol-related content and alcohol use has not been investigated. It has further been suggested that disclosure and exposure of alcohol-related content may be a mere reflection of alcohol use or that disclosure and exposure may instigate alcohol use (Moreno et al, 2012; Westgate and Holliday, 2016; Groth et al, 2017)
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