%0 Journal Article
%T My friends, I'm #SOTALLYTOBER: A longitudinal examination of college students' drinking, friends' approval of drinking, and Facebook alcohol-related posts
%J Digital health
%D 2019
%A Steers, Mai-Ly N.
%A Neighbors, Clayton
%A Wickham, Robert E.
%A Petit, Whitney E.
%A Kerr, Bradley
%A Moreno, Megan A.
%V 5
%N 
%P e2055207619845449-e2055207619845449
%X BACKGROUND: Literature has consistently shown a positive relationship between young adults' social media alcohol-related posts and drinking outcomes; however, the reasons for this association and the psychosocial influences behind students' posting of alcohol-related content are still unclear. Peer influences have been robustly shown to predict students' drinking such that students' perceptions of their friends' drinking is positively associated with their own drinking. <br><br>OBJECTIVE: Although research has demonstrated that online and offline peer influences are robust predictors of drinking among college students, perceptions of friends' approval and students' drinking in relation to alcohol-related posting have yet to be explored longitudinally. <br><br>METHODS: The current multi-site, multi-method study examined students (<i>N</i>=316; 58.7% female) from a Midwest (58.8%) and Northwest university over a 4-year period. All Facebook alcohol-related posts were coded each academic calendar year and perceived friends' approval of drinking and students' alcohol use were assessed annually. A lagged, random coefficients negative binomial model was specified to examine between- and within-person effects. <br><br>RESULTS: After controlling for perceptions of friends' alcohol-related posts, results revealed that time, drinking more, and perceiving friends as more approving of drinking were significantly and positively associated with posting alcohol-related content at the between-person level. Moreover, a significant interaction of Time X Drinking, with drinking at the between-person level, emerged such that heavier drinkers tended to post less often over time. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Increases in alcohol-related content posts are likely to over-inflate students' drinking norms and their drinking. Thus, it is plausible that social media networks containing more alcohol-related content may contribute to cyclical increases in drinking for individuals within that network.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I SAGE Publishing
%@ 2055-2076
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055207619845449