INFLUENCING SOCIAL MEDIA’S CONTRIBUTION TO BINGE DRINKING
THE CONTENT With social media use averaging at 2-4 hours a day, platforms can significantly impact their users’ choices, especially when it comes to alcohol consumption. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok feature large amounts of content related to binge drinking and partying. This content can lead viewers to assume that binge drinking and overconsumption of alcohol are normal. “Substance use, particularly alcohol, is fre - quently displayed on social media sites—this normalizes drinking for teens and young adults,” said Brenda Curtis, Ph.D., in a report on the connection between social media usage and underage drinking. Curtis is an assistant professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. An example of this type of content is a TikTok trend where people, one at a time, alone in a room, tell the camera which of their friends they think will be the drunkest by the end of the night. It basically makes drinking exces - sively a competition. Along with TikTok trends like that, there are also Instagram pages that feature videos and photos of drunk people. These posts gener - ally gear towards being comical, yet could be contributing to a bigger issue.
Popular Instagram page Drunk People Doing Things recently featured a video of a drunk man walking into a pen full of sheep and get- ting kicked in the head by one of the animals. The caption read “mutton busted,” which may add to the comical nature of the clip, but these intoxicated actions are dangerous and could have profound implications. Content like this may seem harmless, but it can lead to people thinking that binge drink- ing and being reckless while drinking is nor- mal, safe, and in many cases, comical. THE ISSUE With binge drinking being a common factor in comedic content on social media, it is easy for people to forget the risks involved with exces- sive alcohol use. According to the CDC, five or more drinks per day for men and four or more drinks per day for women is considered excessive drinking. After surveying 72 men and women age 18- 35, 63.8% reported that they drink more than five drinks on a night out. Of that percentage, almost 60% said that they follow some social media page that regularly shares alcohol-re- lated content. Given that over 50% of those who drink over the CDC standard for excessive drinking also follow social media pages with alcohol-related content, we can assume a relationship be - tween the two.
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