Background and aims: It has been proposed that increased screen time contributes to increasing rates of adolescents abstaining from alcohol use. We argue that this proposition depends on the extent to which a type of screen time promotes social norms. We examined whether social norms mediated the association between alcohol use and i) social media, ii) television, and iii) video gaming.
Design: Multilevel models distinguishing between two time-varying factors: between-person effects and within-person effects. We used data from a randomized-controlled trial examining the efficiency of a personality-targeted substance use programme.
Participants: 3612 adolescents (47% female, mean age = 12.7, SD = 0.5 years) were recruited from 31 schools in the Greater Montreal area.
Measurements: We estimated the association between three types of screen time (social media, television, and video gaming), alcohol-related social norms, and alcohol use.
Findings: Social norms mediated the association between social media use and alcohol use at both the between-person (β = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.11, p = .000) and within-person level (β = 0.02, 95% CI = 0.01, 0.03, p = .000) and association between television use and alcohol use at the within-person level (β = 0.01, 95% CI = -0.004, 0.01, p = .000). Social norms did not mediate the association between video gaming and alcohol use.
Conclusions: Alcohol-related social norms were shown to mediate the association between social media use, both at a correlational and longitudinal level, and the association between alcohol use and television use and alcohol use, at a longitudinal level, which may imply that these promote positive social norms towards alcohol use, subsequently increasing adolescents' drinking behaviour.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01655615.
Keywords: Adolescents; Alcohol use; Screen time; Social norms.
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