IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2023i10p5820-d1146472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dealing with Alcohol-Related Posts on Social Media: Using a Mixed-Method Approach to Understand Young Peoples’ Problem Awareness and Evaluations of Intervention Ideas

Author

Listed:
  • Hanneke Hendriks

    (Behavioral Science Institute (BSI), Communication & Media, Radboud University, 6525 GD Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

  • Tu Thanh Le

    (Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, 2511 VX Den Haag, The Netherlands)

  • Winifred A. Gebhardt

    (Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands)

  • Bas van den Putte

    (Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Robyn Vanherle

    (Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, 3000 Leuven, Belgium)

Abstract

Young individuals frequently share and encounter alcohol-related content (i.e., alcohol posts) on social networking sites. The prevalence of these posts is problematic because both the sharing of and exposure to these posts can increase young individuals’ alcohol (mis)use. Consequently, it is essential to develop effective intervention strategies that hinder young individuals from sharing these posts. This study aimed to develop such intervention strategies by following four steps: (1) assessing young individuals’ problem awareness of alcohol posts, (2) unraveling individuals’ own intervention ideas to tackle the problem of alcohol posts, (3) examining their evaluations of theory/empirical-based intervention ideas, and (4) exploring individual differences in both problem awareness and intervention evaluations. To reach these aims, a mixed-method study (i.e., focus-group interviews and surveys) among Dutch high-school and college students ( N total = 292, Age range = 16–28 years) was conducted. According to the results, most youth did not consider alcohol posts to be a problem and were, therefore, in favor of using automated warning messages to raise awareness. However, these messages might not work for every individual, as group differences in problem awareness and intervention evaluations exist. Overall, this study puts forward potential intervention ideas to reduce alcohol posts in digital spheres and can therefore serve as a steppingstone to test the actual effects of the ideas.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanneke Hendriks & Tu Thanh Le & Winifred A. Gebhardt & Bas van den Putte & Robyn Vanherle, 2023. "Dealing with Alcohol-Related Posts on Social Media: Using a Mixed-Method Approach to Understand Young Peoples’ Problem Awareness and Evaluations of Intervention Ideas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(10), pages 1-26, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:10:p:5820-:d:1146472
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/10/5820/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/10/5820/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:10:p:5820-:d:1146472. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.