Dealing with Alcohol-Related Posts on Social Media: Using a Mixed-Method Approach to Understand Young Peoples’ Problem Awareness and Evaluations of Intervention Ideas

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 20, pp. 5820

Abstract

Young individuals frequently share and encounter alcohol-related content (i.e., alcohol posts) on social networking sites. The prevalence of these posts is problematic because both the sharing of and exposure to these posts can increase young individuals’ alcohol (mis)use. Consequently, it is essential to develop effective intervention strategies that hinder young individuals from sharing these posts. This study aimed to develop such intervention strategies by following four steps: (1) assessing young individuals’ problem awareness of alcohol posts, (2) unraveling individuals’ own intervention ideas to tackle the problem of alcohol posts, (3) examining their evaluations of theory/empirical-based intervention ideas, and (4) exploring individual differences in both problem awareness and intervention evaluations. To reach these aims, a mixed-method study (i.e., focus-group interviews and surveys) among Dutch high-school and college students (Ntotal = 292, Agerange = 16–28 years) was conducted. According to the results, most youth did not consider alcohol posts to be a problem and were, therefore, in favor of using automated warning messages to raise awareness. However, these messages might not work for every individual, as group differences in problem awareness and intervention evaluations exist. Overall, this study puts forward potential intervention ideas to reduce alcohol posts in digital spheres and can therefore serve as a steppingstone to test the actual effects of the ideas.

Authors 5

1. Hanneke Hendriks corresponding

   Radboud University Nijmegen

   Affiliation as printed

   Behavioral Science Institute (BSI), Communication & Media, Radboud University, 6525 GD Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2. Tu Thanh Le

   Ministry of Health Welfare and Sport

   Affiliation as printed

   Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, 2511 VX Den Haag, The Netherlands

3. Winifred A. Gebhardt Aachen Health Medical and Neuropsychology Unit Institute of Psychology, Leiden University

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands

4. Bas van den Putte

   University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

5. Robyn Vanherle

   KU Leuven

   Affiliation as printed

   Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, 3000 Leuven, Belgium