In the digital age, social media enables young adults to continuously engage with peers, significantly shaping their alcohol-related behaviors. Through these platforms, they often explore their identity concerning alcohol consumption and interact with others who exhibit similar habits. Additionally, social media exposes young adults—whether intentionally or unintentionally—to alcohol-related content shared by their peers. Ultimately, this online environment is highly likely to lead to an increase in offline alcohol consumption. However, previous studies have mostly focused on relatively broad concepts such as the frequency of posting or viewing alcohol-related content, and research on more specific, individual interactions between friends is lacking. Accordingly, the current study aims to examine the impact of college students’ participation in online alcohol-facilitating communication on the frequency and intensity of their alcohol consumption over the past year, specifically by utilizing dyadic self- and peer-reported data.
The study recruited participants from a southeastern U.S. university by randomly selecting 8,199 students and including an additional 116 self-referred individuals, all of whom met the criteria of being enrolled in college, having used alcohol in the past year, and being between 18 and 26 years old. Eligible participants were asked to nominate up to four peers, resulting in peer dyads comprising 562 pairs (a total of 1,124 individuals) who participated in two laboratory sessions during which computerized surveys were administered. The survey assessed the frequency of alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking over the past year, as well as the extent of engagement in online alcohol-facilitative communication. The collected data were subsequently analyzed using structural equation modeling.
The findings indicated that college students who engaged more frequently in online alcohol-facilitative communication reported higher past-year alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking, and peer engagement was also significantly associated with students’ drinking behaviors. In particular, the student’s own engagement emerged as a stronger predictor than peer engagement. While the interaction effect between student and peer engagement was generally non-significant, exploratory analyses revealed differential associations depending on specific dimensions of alcohol-facilitative communication. In particular, for coordination of drinking and sharing of party-related content, peer engagement was associated with greater alcohol use regardless of the student’s own level of engagement, with stronger effects observed when the student’s engagement was low. Although engagement in safety behaviors after drinking and viewing party-related content were also associated with higher alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking, interaction effects for these dimensions were not statistically significant.
Takeaway: College students’ engagement in online alcohol-facilitative communication—especially in coordinating drinking and sharing party-related content—significantly predicts higher alcohol use and heavy drinking, with peer influence being particularly strong when personal engagement is low.