New Study Links Social Networking With Alcohol And Substance Abuse

Undated — Social networking is leading kids to substance abuse if a new survey proves correct.

According to a new study, teens who use Facebook and other social networking sites are three times as likely to drink alcohol, twice as likely to use marijuana, and five times more likely to smoke tobacco than teens who don’t frequent the site.

The survey was conducted by Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Seventy percent of teens spend time on these sites every day, according to the survey. That is 17 million 12 – 17 year olds.

Study researcher Joseph A. Califano said looking at pictures of teens getting drunk, using drugs, and passing out contributes to the risky behavior.

Compared to teens who never saw these images on social networking sites, picture viewers where three times more likely to drink alcohol, four times more likely to smoke pot, and three to four times more able to obtain marijuana and illegal prescription drugs.

Dr. Andres Huberman, medical director at North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital in West Hempstead, New York told CBS, “They see these images and there are no moral or educational statements accompanying them, so teens may be left with the impression that this is what the real world is about and that everybody is doing it, so it is OK.”

Nearly 90 percent of parents surveyed as part of the study said they didn’t think social networking sites would make their kids more likely to drink or do drugs.

Califano told WebMD, “It is a phenomenal assault on public health that we subject teens to pictures of drugs, alcohol, or teens being drunk or passed out on the Internet, in films, and on TV shows that are suggestive and glorify drinking and drugging.”

CBS News

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