Can country-level changes in internet use, social media use and online gaming explain the decline in drinking among adolescents?: A multilevel analysis of ESPAD data from 2003 to 2019.

Objectives: The decline in adolescent drinking in the past two decades has coincided with substantial changes in the use of digital media. This suggests that certain types of digital media use may have replaced drinking among adolescents. We hypothesized negative associations between adolescent drinking and country-level changes in frequency of internet use and the more specific activities social media use and online gaming.Design: Multilevel analysis of repeated cross-sectional school surveys. Setting: Europe.Participants: The data comprised five waves of data from the European School Survey Project for Alcohol and Drugs (ESPAD) from 2003 – 2019. The survey included responses from 537,142 adolescents aged 15-16 from a total of 51 countries/geographical areas. Analysis: Past 30 days’ binge drinking and drinking frequency were regressed on general internet use, social media use and online gaming, according to three different levels of analysis (countries, within-country changes, individuals). Sensitivity analyses adjusted for family characteristics and other leisure activities. Results. We found evidence against the hypothesized negative associations between changes in population level drinking and population level internet use and online gaming. Results for social media were inconclusive. At the individual level, all digital media use variables were positively associated with drinking.Conclusions: It is unlikely that country-level increases in internet use and online gaming have replaced drinking among adolescents. The potential role of social media requires further studies. The results underline the important difference between population-level and individual-level effects in explaining changes in adolescent drinking patterns.

First Drinking Experiences during Adolescence in South Korea: A Qualitative Study Focusing on the Internal and External Factors

This study explored the internal and external factors affecting the first drinking experience during Korean adolescence. To achieve this, we collected 34 cases revealing specific drinking experiences during adolescence in Alcoholic Anonymous (A.A.), Korea. The collected data were analyzed using a qualitative case study method, and the analysis focused on the internal and external factors influencing drinking in adolescence. As per the results, internal factors that influenced drinking in adolescence were “curiosity” and “elevated mood and stress relief”, and external factors were “family”, “friends”, “older friends at school”, “neighbors”, “Korean tradition of alcohol making”, “workplaces that encourage alcohol consumption”, and “a generous drinking culture.” Based on these findings, we suggested several practical alternatives, such as a stringent alcohol punishment system, government-led campaigns to overcome the generous alcohol culture, monitoring the drinking status of working and intern youths, and using local crime prevention guards to curb youth drinking. In future research, it is necessary to quantitatively verify the results of this study to develop theories related to adolescent drinking behavior.

MOTIVACIJA I NAVIKE PIJENJA ALKOHOLNIH PIĆA ADOLESCENATA GRADA DUBROVNIKA

ALCOHOL DRINKING MOTIVATION AND HABITS OF ADOLESCENTS IN THE CITY OF DUBROVNIK Adolescent alcohol use is one of the biggest public health problems of youth worldwide. Studies conducted in the Republic of Croatia confirm a high prevalence of this phenomenon in high school students with the data showing that almost 92% of young people under the age of 16 have tried some of the alcoholic beverages. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of beer and spirit drinking among high school students according to gender, type of school, and beer drinking of people closely related to them. The study also explored high school students’ motivation for beer drinking and differences in motivation between genders. The study included 789 students from 2nd and 3rd grades of high schools in Dubrovnik. The results showed that 92% of students have tried alcohol at least once. A higher percentage of male students consumed beer and wine than female students, and when it came to hard liquor, female students drank an equal amount of hard liquor as male students. The students in vocational schools, particularly in three-year programs consume more alcohol than the students from grammar schools. The study showed a correlation between adolescent drinking and drinking habits of people close to them, in particular partners and close friends. The study also showed the link between adolescent drinking and parents’ beer drinking. The most common motivation for drinking beer in adolescents is having fun and relaxing from everyday worries. They drink beer when they feel happy or bored as beer drinking increases their good mood and contributes to feeling relaxed. This study results indicate the need for implementing science-based alcohol use prevention programs and programs of high school students’ mental health promotion. The importance of involving parents in prevention programs, the role of the community in promoting healthy lifestyles and organizing ways of constructive leisure and fun for young people are also emphasized. Key words: adolescents; alcoholic drinks; beer; drinking; motivation

A community intervention to reduce alcohol consumption and drunkenness among adolescents in Sweden: a quasi-experiment

Background Several studies have examined the effect of community interventions on youth alcohol consumption, and the results have often been mixed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a community intervention known as the Öckerö Method on adolescent alcohol consumption and perceived parental attitudes towards adolescent drinking. Method The study is based on a quasi-experimental design, using matched controls. Self-report studies were conducted among adolescents in grades 7–9 of compulsory education in four control and four intervention communities in the south of Sweden in 2016–2018. Baseline measures were collected in autumn 2016 before the intervention was implemented in the intervention communities. Outcomes were the adolescents’ alcohol consumption, past-year drunkenness, past-month drunkenness and perceived parental attitudes towards alcohol. Results Estimating Difference-in-Difference models using Linear Probability Models, we found no empirical evidence that the intervention has any effect on adolescents’ drinking habits, or on their perceptions of their parents’ attitudes towards adolescent drinking. Conclusion This is the first evaluation of this method, and we found no evidence that the intervention had any effect on the level of either young people’s alcohol consumption or their past-year or past-month drunkenness, nor on their parents’ perceived attitudes toward adolescent drinking. A further improvement would be to employ a follow-up period that is longer than the three-year period employed in this study. Trial registration ISRCTN registry: Study ID: 51635778, 31th March 2021 (Retrospectively registered).