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Hazardous drinking among college students persists, despite ongoing university alcohol education and alcohol intervention programs. College students often post comments or pictures of drinking episodes on social media platforms.
This study aimed to understand one university’s student attitudes toward alcohol use by examining student posts about drinking on social media platforms and to identify opportunities to reduce alcohol-related harm and inform novel alcohol interventions.
We analyzed social media posts from 7 social media platforms using qualitative inductive coding based on grounded theory to identify the contexts of student drinking and the attitudes and behaviors of students and peers during drinking episodes. We reviewed publicly available social media posts that referenced alcohol, collaborating with undergraduate students to select their most used platforms and develop locally relevant search terms; all posts in our data set were generated by students associated with a specific university. From the codes, we derived themes about student culture regarding alcohol use.
In total, 1151 social media posts were included in this study. These included 809 Twitter tweets, 113 Instagram posts, 100 Greekrank posts, 64 Reddit posts, 34 College Confidential posts, 23 Facebook posts, and 8 YouTube posts. Posts included both implicit and explicit portrayals of alcohol use. Across all types of posts reviewed, positive drinking attitudes were most common, followed by negative and then neutral attitudes, but valence varied by platform. Posts that portrayed drinking positively received positive peer feedback and indicate that drinking is viewed by students as an essential and positive part of university student culture.
Social media provide a real-time picture of students’ behavior during their own and others’ heavy drinking. Posts portray heavy drinking as a normal part of student culture, reinforced by peers’ positive feedback on posts. Interventions for college drinking should help students manage alcohol intake in real time, provide safety information during alcohol use episodes, and raise student awareness of web-based privacy concerns and reputation management. Additional interventions for students, alumni, and parents are needed to address positive attitudes about and traditions of drinking.
Binge drinking among college students remains common and consequential. Approximately one-third of college students binge drink [
Social media can provide real-time behavioral data for large populations [
Favorite social networks of young adults 2012-2019 (based on Statista data: Piper Jaffray [
Social media posts by college students often show risky drinking behaviors and the college drinking culture. Posts establish a web-based identity that normalizes and glamorizes binge drinking [
Peer influences predict drinking among college-aged populations [
Previous studies of college students’ alcohol posts have assessed single social media sites where users build social capital through networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. There are additional college-focused social media sites that host anonymously shared content, such as Greekrank and College Confidential. Reddit hosts
To develop a new intervention to prevent student binge drinking at a mid-Atlantic public university, we assessed student drinking behavior and attitudes to capture aspects of drinking culture at this particular university. This university is frequently ranked in the top 50
Research assistants (RAs) were undergraduate and postgraduate students who captured social media posts. Social media platforms, search terms, hashtags, and specific locations for data collection were defined through iterative discussions with current undergraduates about events, traditions, and local establishments related to the drinking culture at the university. The RAs used hashtags, locations, and search terms commonly associated with the university. RAs searched social media posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, College Confidential, Greekrank, and Reddit. These platforms were selected based on the popularity of the platform among students, popularity during the timeframe under review, ability to see posts without a connection to a poster (eg, friend or follower), and durability of content (eg, content is not time limited as on a platform such as Snapchat). Each platform has varying capabilities and levels of anonymity that determine the nature of the messages produced, as described in
Between March 2019 and November 2019, RAs gathered publicly available posts and comments about college students’ drinking behaviors published on 7 social media platforms between March 2013 and February 2019; all posts in our data set were generated by students associated with a specific university. RAs were assigned a site, and spreadsheets were developed with the date and time, username, gender (if known), course of study (if known), search terms, likes, shares, views, comments, and content keywords for each post. Given that we used a manual search method and manually reviewed each search term, our goal was to obtain a representative sample, acknowledging that we would not be able to find all available public posts. Instagram and Facebook required log-ins, so RAs created new accounts from which they could capture these posts. To not violate the implicit trust granted by establishing a relationship with a social media poster, these profiles were for log-in purposes only; RAs did not publish any posts, nor did they
The data were organized using an inductive grounded theory approach [
One researcher reviewed all posts and comments to design a preliminary codebook that defined the codes and described the coding procedures. Each coder (MNC and JGS) independently coded portions of the data and met weekly to update the codebook with new codes that emerged as more data were coded. An open discussion approach added a third reviewer (JPH) to discuss areas of disagreement [
Interrater reliability and percent agreement by social media platform.
|
Cohen κ score | Percent agreement (%) |
1.00 | 100 | |
0.78 | 94.5 | |
YouTube | 0.86 | 96.3 |
College confidential | 0.79 | 96.2 |
Greekrank | 0.87 | 97.8 |
0.42 | 95.6 | |
0.35 | 90.7 | |
Overall interrater reliability | 0.96 | 98.8 |
RAs did not friend, follow, or establish a relationship with anyone who had posted; we only reviewed publicly available posts to avoid violating the privacy or implicit trust of any social media user. This study was approved by the Social and Behavioral Science Institutional Review Board of the University of Virginia (protocol 3282).
Social media posts by students before, during, and after alcohol use provided information about students’ and peers’ real-time attitudes and beliefs. For example, on Instagram, 2 posts illustrated student attitudes toward fake IDs. The first was a video of a creased fake ID containing personally identifiable information. The second showed a photo with the caption “three girls one fake,” clearly documenting illegal behavior by multiple students using a fake ID to obtain alcohol while under the legal age. On YouTube, a video showed a young woman looking for an entrance to the hospital emergency room encountering police, which resulted in her arrest. Many student posts included the phrase “Work hard, play hard.” Photos included a picture of a student studying for examinations, surrounded by ≥25 open cans of beer. Other posts showed alumni and parents joining in parties that included descriptions or depictions of binge drinking behavior.
Social media posts with positive reactions framed the university as a
Drinking attitudes on each platform were classified as positive, neutral, or negative.
Definition of positive, neutral, and negative by platform.
Platform and definition | Example | ||
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Positive | The overall tone of the user’s attitude is positive and glorifying alcohol consumption making alcohol consumption look glamorous and appealing. |
Two smiling girls sitting on the steps of a deck, obviously under the influence and surrounded by red solo cups and empty bottles, with a caption about what a good day it was. |
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Neutral | The user is not suggesting an opinion on alcohol. Posts that belong in this category include post about events on campus. |
A photo of a historic marker near several fraternity houses, with alcohol bottles and cups in the background. |
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Negative | Posts discussing the culture and behaviors of students negatively in regard to over consumption of alcohol. Posts discussing how alcohol is harmful to students and their environment. |
A close-up photo of empty bottles and cups lying in the gutter of a public street with a caption about the unacceptable behavior of university students. |
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Positive | The overall tone of the user’s attitude is positive and glorifying alcohol consumption making alcohol consumption look glamorous and appealing. |
A photo of the membership of a fraternity outside of their house with an American flag and many of the brothers holding drinks in salute. |
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Neutral | No neutral Facebook posts. | N/Aa |
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Negative | No negative Facebook posts. | N/A |
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Positive | The overall tone of the user’s attitude is positive and glorifying alcohol consumption making alcohol consumption look glamorous and appealing. |
A current student provides a guided tour of the collection of restaurants and bars near campus and advises on which are fun as well as easy to obtain alcohol while underage. |
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Neutral | No neutral YouTube posts. | N/A |
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Negative | No negative YouTube posts. | N/A |
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Positive | The overall tone of the user’s attitude is positive and glorifying alcohol consumption making alcohol consumption look glamorous and appealing. |
“God I love tequila and cute boys who know how to sing!” with hashtags that link it to the university. |
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Neutral | The user is not suggesting an opinion, just stating a fact or news update. Posts that belong in this category include posts about traumatic events that happened. |
“Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force challenges concept (traditions of excessive drinking by students at specific events).” (includes a link to a newspaper article that prevents several perspectives) |
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Negative | Posts discussing the culture and behaviors of university students negatively in regard to over consumption of alcohol. Posts discussing how alcohol is harmful to students and their environment. Posts that belong in this category also include posts about user’s opinions on traumatic events that happened on campus. |
“(Event) looks like Lily Pulitzer vomited on the entire (school) population.” “White privilege, (Event) 2017 style.” Both tweets accompanied by photos of students drinking at an event. |
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Positive | Posts include students talking positively about events on campus and adjusting well into the school culture with and without consumption of alcohol. |
“...but I would go again if I got to do it over (somehow I think you would not go again). A listserv primarily for notifying students of alcohol-free events was updated weekly when I attended; I can’t attest to who updates it now or how frequently. I would agree that most people drink even if they are not involved in Greek life (‘Thirsty Thursday’ is a grounds-wide saying) but I was happy enough sober.” |
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Neutral | The user is not suggesting an opinion. |
“Over the past couple of decades, fraternities have gradually been required to use stricter controls on parties. Guest lists, BYOB, etc. This isn’t unique to (this university) though. It’s simply a sign of the times. But it does make it harder for non-Greeks to be part of the Greek social scene. In any event, if joining the Greek system isn’t your thing, it just means you need to build your own social circle whether through clubs and whatnot. Note that after first year, a large number of university students live off campus, so I imagine a lot of Non-Greeks simply have get together at their apartments or even hang out at (local) restaurants and bars.” |
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Negative | Posts discussing the culture and behaviors of university students negatively in regard to over consumption of alcohol. Students having a hard time adjusting to the culture at the university. Students complaining about excessive alcohol consumption and lack of alternative activities and ways to bond with other students. |
“Bottom-line, this is NOT a good place to come if you do not plan on being a moderate to heavy party-goer. Yes, you can survive on the periphery of the social scene by not drinking but you will never get that ‘quintessential’ university experience that current students and alum rave about. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.” |
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Positive | Students rating fraternity chapters positively based on their availability of alcohol and social events. Posts in this category include posts that place higher social status on fraternity chapters based on their availability of alcohol, women, and social events. |
“These guys really know how to party. Except sometimes that causes problems because I pass out at their house, but the guys are super nice and always find a way to get me home back to dorms. Great guys all the way around!” “Top house, biggest parties, coldest beers, hottest women.” |
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Neutral | Posts in this category include students discussing how fraternity chapters could improve by throwing more social events and having more availability of alcohol. Fraternities in this category are average party goers. These fraternities fall somewhere in the middle between very high social status and very low. |
“If you’re looking for a mild place to party, good, but if you’re looking for ragers not the place except once a year. Overall ok guys.” “Solid group of guys and definitely a top house but should probably throw more parties to remain a top house.” |
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Negative | Students rating fraternity chapters negatively based on their lack of availability of alcohol, attractive women, and social events. |
“A brother puked on me from above in a balcony. They have absolutely no class or alcohol tolerance. Not ‘true Southern gentlemen’ like they think they are.” “Superficial brotherhood. Serves watered down punch.” “Buncha trust fund betas who genuinely think they’re alphas.” “Drink 7 beers and pretend to black out...soft.” |
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Positive | Posts include students talking positively about events on campus and adjusting well into the university culture with and without consumption of alcohol. |
“You have to make your own fun. You can try to socialize with people at parties without drinking—go early before people are totally wasted. Fill that solo cup with water and laugh as people get less funny, more incoherent then leave when you’re bored.” |
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Neutral | The user is not suggesting an opinion, just stating a fact or news update. |
“You still need an ID at those bars unless you come in early. It doesn’t have to be a good fake but u need one.” |
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Negative | Posts discussing the culture and behaviors of university students negatively in regard to over consumption of alcohol. Students complaining about excessive alcohol consumption and lack of alternative activities and ways to bond with other students. |
“It is concerning that the first people encountered at the hospital did nothing to help, other than pointing them to the ER, and that it took so long after the police arrived to begin to move her into the ER—it seems this was dealt with more as a law enforcement matter than an emergency medical situation, which it could have been. That said, it is hard to feel too sorry for either one of the girls, and they should know that people who tend to become angry or combative when drunk have a strong tendency to get themselves in trouble from drinking. I seriously hope they learn something from this.” |
aN/A: not applicable.
Attitudes toward drinking by social media platform.
Types of social media | Instagram (n=111a), n (%) | Facebook (n=23), n (%) | Twitter, (n=373a) n (%) | YouTube (n=8), n (%) | Reddit (n=80b), n (%) | College confidential (n=38b), n (%) | Greekrank (n=108b), n (%) | |
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Positive | 95 (85.6) | 23 (100) | 104 (27.9) | 8 (100) | 25 (39) | 3 (10.7) | 48 (44.4) |
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Negative | 8 (7.2) | 0 (0) | 179 (48) | 0 (0) | 20 (31.2) | 25 (65.8) | 47 (43.5) |
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Neutral | 8 (7.2) | 0 (0) | 90 (24.1) | 0 (0) | 35 (54.6) | 10 (26.3) | 13 (12) |
aNot all posts were directly related to drinking attitudes and only those posts that displayed a drinking attitude were included.
bThis platform included posts that displayed multiple drinking attitudes.
Drinking experiences were classified as implicit or explicit on platforms with photographs. Explicit alcohol use was common on Instagram and Facebook, seen in 66.7% (74/111) of Instagram posts, whereas the remaining Instagram posts alluded to alcohol consumption and were coded as implicit (37/111, 33.3%). Facebook posts were usually explicit in depicting alcohol use (21/23, 91%), with a few implicit consumption posts (2/23, 9%). Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube used a visual medium and were grouped together for the analysis. Posts on these platforms (with similar definitions of positive, neutral, and negative) showed more explicit alcohol consumption (102/140, 72.9%;
In contrast, posts on Reddit, College Confidential, and Greekrank showed a wider range of views on alcohol events. Overall, 31% (20/64) of the Reddit posts portrayed alcohol consumption as negative, 54% (35/64) as neutral, and 39% (25/64) as positive. College Confidential frequently portrayed alcohol consumption as negative (25/34, 65%), with a minority of posts about alcohol (3/34, 10%) being positive. Greekrank posts were evenly split as positive (48/71, 44%) or negative (47/71, 43%). Compared with Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, College Confidential, Greekrank, and Reddit had fewer alcohol-related posts depicted as positive. Finally, we identified high-risk drinking events in the local areas where college students tend to frequently binge drink. Examples included gatherings at local bars and restaurants, festivals, fraternity houses, yearly events, and traditions around academic breaks, seasons of the year, and sports events. Most of these events were displayed positively. Negative events (eg, student injuries) were positive toward the student but negative toward the university administration. Of the posts that exhibited high-risk drinking events, most (274/370, 74.1%) were shown in a positive social context, whereas only 25.9% (96/370) were shown in a negative social context.
On average, Instagram posts received 350
Implicit and explicit alcohol content on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Drinking behaviors | Instagram (n=111), n (%) | Facebook (n=23), n (%) | YouTube (n=8), n (%) | |
Implicit alcohol content | 37 (33.3) | 2 (8.7) | 0 (0) | |
Explicit alcohol content | 74 (66.7) | 21 (91.3) | 8 (100) | |
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<20 | 14 (12.6) | 11 (47.8) | 0 (0) |
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20-50 | 15 (13.5) | 6 (26.1) | 0 (0) |
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50-100 | 17 (15.3) | 2 (8.7) | 1 (12.5) |
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100-500 | 51 (45.9) | 4 (17.4) | 1 (12.5) |
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≥500 | 14 (12.6) | 0 (0) | 6 (75) |
As we worked with the data, the coders noticed that certain words frequently appeared. The largest words showed the highest frequency, included alcohol, culture, Greek, drunk, and party. The visual representation of the word cloud shows the common words in the content of social media posts.
Students post alcohol use content, which was then liked, retweeted, and shared, likely reinforcing the poster, who is creating a public image of a desirable life to their peers. Students freely shared their drinking behaviors and attitudes toward alcohol use on publicly accessible social media platforms [
Alcohol-related events including student deaths have made headlines. Some social media posts showed that students believed that the university should have done more to prevent these tragedies. In other cases, social media posts indicated an attitude of blaming the victims for being in these dangerous situations. Few posts mentioned the dangers related to excessive drinking or taking responsibility for drinking behavior. Instead, more posts showed students in situations where they could use help and guidance, such as posts showing students passed out in public spaces, intoxicated while walking on the streets, and other situations where their safety and well-being are at risk. These posts demonstrate that students may need a convenient, easy-to-understand resource that explains the university’s policies on alcohol use and how to obtain help. This guidance should be available at the moment of excessive drinking.
Several social media posts included multiple generations of alumni and current students drinking alcohol together. These posts demonstrate that drinking is normative and multigenerational. This implies that students must drink alcohol to have a typical, happy experience at the university. Although there were some posts critical of the portrayed drinking culture, a few posts showed that moderate drinking is an option. A few posts shared the idea that it is possible to have a satisfying, fun, and enjoyable college social life without participating in binge drinking. Some students indicated a desire for greater availability of events and opportunities that are not centered on alcohol use, both by students who abstain and those who would like a break from always drinking when socializing.
We did not capture every social media post on the selected platforms nor did we capture data from all possible social media platforms. For example, Snapchat is a popular platform in which posts are time limited, with privacy protections that limit the public availability of posts, making it unavailable for data collection. Snapchat videos, also known as
Other studies on social media and binge drinking have examined responses to specific messages [
On the basis of these themes, we offer 5 recommendations to reduce harm related to excessive drinking among college students. First, the early timing (often before or during the first semester of college) and universal targets of alcohol education should be reconsidered. In addition to existing alcohol education, we assert that there is a need for tailored, easy-to-use tools that students can use in real time when drinking. Second, universities should show students how to obtain help from themselves or their peers during drinking without penalty, even if they are underage. Third, students at the university (and likely others) need assistance in finding popular alcohol-free social activities. Fourth, colleges should raise students’ awareness of their web-based reputations and provide options to help them repair their web-based reputations if public posts show them under the influence of alcohol. Fifth, universities should encourage parents and alumni to modify their own drinking habits at university events or gatherings to provide better role modeling. Previous studies have found that interventions encouraging parents to model acceptable limits for alcohol consumption can have a positive impact on delaying and reducing student drinking [
This qualitative analysis of social media posts on college student drinking is the first to characterize student posting and commenting behavior across multiple social media platforms. This adds to a growing body of literature showing that analyzing social media can reveal the context of hazardous drinking behavior [
Finally, this social media review identifies several new targets for intervention. Students need real-time interventions during their drinking episodes before they experience harm. Students lack awareness of resources for improving safety for themselves and their peers while drinking and need to access this guidance when witnessing excess drinking. Students also need consciousness-raising interventions regarding the risks of creating or allowing social media posts during drinking episodes. These and other behavioral targets could be addressed by platforms such as mobile apps that could provide information during drinking episodes. A thoughtfully developed mobile app could provide tailored, real-time tracking of drinking behavior; guidance to improve student drinking safety; and reminders against posting content that could harm reputations and limit future options.
Social media platform descriptions, search methods, restrictions, and yield for the study.
research assistant
The study was funded by the University of Virginia Strategic Investment Fund under the program “Reducing the Burden of Addiction in Virginia.” NSA is now at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. MNC is currently at the Recovery Research Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.
None declared.