The cocktail of 'snap chatting' with a shot glass is to be wary of, says new study

The social media addiction seems to be touching new lows — or, should we say, new highs — every day.

The latest being a study establishing that the college students who binge drink frequently show signs of social media addiction, because of the tendency to post on social media in an intoxicated condition.

The study, published on Saturday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, was led by Dr Natalie A Ceballos, a psychology professor at Texas State University in San Marcos.

While averring that social media use can be problematic and may even be addictive, the study says, “The content to which college students are exposed through social media may influence their behaviour, leading to increased drinking following glamorised alcohol images.”

The findings of the study suggest that when compared to those students who had never binged, those who did were more likely to have posted on social media platforms while drinking and being intoxicated. "During these times when young students are feeling uninhibited by alcohol, they may be even more likely than usual to post inappropriate material without considering the future impact," Dr Ceballos reportedly says.

"In some cases, these sorts of mistakes have even influenced college admission and job applications,” she adds.

Need we say more about the shamefacedness of ‘snapchatting under influence’? For the uninitiated and those living under a rock for over a decade now, this is the latest fad among young adults that requires you to post a picture under intoxication — a fad that is touching epidemic proportions. 

The research was carried out on 425 undergraduate students aged between 18 and 25 which included both Hispanics and non-Hispanics. They were asked to self-report the quantity of their alcohol consumption and their frequency of binge drinking. (For this study, 'binge drinking' was defined as five drinks at one time for men and four or more for women).

For their study, the team found that Snapchat and Instagram were the most popular sites used by college students, followed by Twitter. "Facebook is waning in popularity among younger users, whereas Snapchat is becoming more popular,” the authors say. 

During the course of the research, the students were reportedly questioned on the addiction to posting on social media — if they experienced negative consequences from their social media use. It was found that the binge drinkers showed greater ‘intensity’ toward their social media usage — they were more emotionally invested in Snapchat, Twitter or Instagram, and viewed it as part of their identity. Clearly, the numbers pointed that the binge drinkers tended to use social media platforms more profusely than non-binge drinkers.

However, not all is as hung-over as it seems.

On the happy high side, Dr Ceballos says that social media is an underutilised tool for addressing Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD) and "facilitating harm-reduction for binge drinkers."

"While college students' reliance on social media has been identified as a risk factor for alcohol-related problems, it might also present an opportunity for innovative interventions,” Ceballos avers. She further explains (primarily for the benefit of the yesteryear generation) that social media trends among young people change quickly. "Therefore, it is important to keep a finger on the pulse of specific social networking platforms college students use most frequently while under the influence of alcohol,” she says.

We have to raise a toast to the relief that social media barely existed when we were in college.

Cheers!

Also read: Three reasons why you should immediately unfollow certain people on social media