Article says teens who use social media are more likely to do drugs

An article in today's Boston Globe says that teenagers who use social media sites are more likely to use drugs, tobacco, and alcohol because they view pictures of others their approximate age. Do you agree or disagree?


REUTERS/Thierry Roge/Files

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff

Teens who use social networking sites like Facebook are more likely to smoke, drink, and use illegal drugs than those who aren’t on them, according to a survey published this week from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
The researchers who surveyed more than 1,000 teens and more than 500 of their parents during March and April of this year found some startling differences between teens who used Facebook, Myspace, or other social networking sites and those who didn’t. Those who logged on were five times as likely to smoke, three times as likely to drink alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana.
Of course, more teens are on these sites than not -- 70 percent compared to 30 percent -- so telling teens to log off isn’t a realistic option for most parents like myself.
Nor is it necessary. One recent study suggests social networking users have higher measures of social well-being and are more like to make friends offline as well as virtually.
What is vital, say the researchers, is better monitoring by parents. Some 40 percent of teens surveyed reporting seeing photos of friends getting drunk, passed out, or using drugs. Half of the teens who saw such photos were first exposed when they were 13, and more than 90 percent when they were 15 or younger.
Those who saw such photos on these sites were, not surprisingly, more likely to mimic the activities in the photos than those on the sites who never saw such photos. One obvious conclusion to be drawn, though, is that it’s not necessarily the sites to blame but the virtual friends who make up a teen’s peer group.
Hanging with drinkers, smokers, and drug users in the social networking world -- as well as the real one -- may mean teens are more likely to follow the habits of these friends.
The trouble is, most parents aren’t aware of what their child is seeing on these sites. More than 85 percent of those who responded in the survey said “spending time on social networking sites does not make it more likely that their child will drink alcohol” or use drugs.
“The time has come for those who operate and profit from social networking sites like Facebook to deploy their expertise to curb such images and to deny use of their sites to children and teens who post pictures of themselves and their friends drunk, passed out or using drugs,” said Joseph Califano, founder and chair of the center that conducted the survey.
Parents, he added, need to give their teens the skills to “keep their heads above the water of the corrupting cultural currents” found on these sites.

 

I don't see the cause/effect argument that they're trying to make. This article is nothing more than a way to say to parents "pay fucking attention to wtf your kids are doing".

 

Say it with me: correlation does not equal causation.

I don't think it's any surprise that there is a high correlation between people who aggressively use social media and people who use social narcotics. The people I know who are most heavily into social media are also the people I know who are most interested in going out and partying and having a good time. Shockingly, and bear with me for this stunning revelation, at parties, people drink and use drugs! Take a moment to let that soak in. I know it's rough.

Either way, parent your children. It's pretty simple.

 

I agree with you... watch your kids, educate your kids... pay f'ing attention to your kids! I'm not saying that will completely absolve kids from trying something their friends do, but it will certainly help.

 

Correlation equals causation. Facebook is a gateway drug to heroin. Ban social media!

 

College English majors really ought to have a statistics class as a requirement for their undergrad.

 

I sincerely hope it doesn't, Baraka Guru. That would disrupt most of my fantasies, as useless as they are. One is that people who use social media might be more human.

 

Meh. Kids who look at linoleum are probably likelier to do drugs and have sex, too.

As far as I can tell, all this does is suggest that there might be an effect on kids from the people in their environment. How is this any different that the same old "you're hanging out with a bad crowd" argument that parents have always made, and usually overstated?

As parents, we either trust that we did the best we could bringing up our kids and instilling them with reasonably good judgment and values, which they will bring to bear on the same nutty situations that teenagerdom throws at all of us in our turn, or we don't trust our kids or ourselves, for which the only solution is to try and lock your kids away from the world, which will likely alienate them and cause them to do actual bad, horribly risky things, instead of the usual mildly stupid stuff that everyone does.

I just don't have very much patience with the whole hysterical "(Fill in the blank) is corrupting our babies! Whatever shall we do?!" bullshit. To me, it smacks of simplistic thinking and inflexibility.

 

I'd like to add that the use of these facilities alleviates both those...situations. As can drugs if not overly processed or made out of poison. Legalists constipate the free flow of life & tend to confuse issues no less than I do. It's Sunday morning & I should be at church...or "the sun is shinin' in my eye that is open & my head is spinnin". Teens who use social media are better off, I think.

 

Looks ro me as one more way of escaping responsibility. Instead of admitting I may have made some parenting mistakes, I will just blame facebook. Yeah that is it Facebook is the reason my kid turned out so horrible.

 

All 3 of my kids are eager to associate. My dog loves me. Life is beautiful, snowy, & if a fruit fly looks me in the eye like it means it, I'm gonna respond. Society produces the drug use better than it responds to it. "Meanings" are both specialized & broadcast. Nobody agrees with everybody, but this easy communication at least allows divergent opinions to be shared without fear.
Dr. Psycho? "...

 

I should've been in rehab ten times over.....