Media Exposure And Substance Use - 1951 Words

The amount of studies on the relationships between media use and substance use is miniscule in comparison to the importance of the topic. According to Primack, Kraemer, Fine, and Dalton (2009), on average, adolescents in the United States are exposed to media for over 8.5 hours per day when taking into consideration multitasking. Primack et al. aimed to study which media exposures are most strongly associated with marijuana and alcohol use among adolescents. In order to study this, the team created a survey that assessed media exposure, substance use, and sociodemographic characteristics and distributed it to a large suburban high school outside of Pittsburgh. Although the current study focused on the use of substances among college†¦show more content†¦Alcohol marketers have started to move their advertising efforts into digital and social media venues (Hoffman et al., 2014). Researchers estimate that approximately two-thirds of alcohol marketing is conducted via new media. Famous music, movies, and television shows have noticeable references to alcohol and drugs, these references as well as the move of advertising to digital and social media venues. The research team of Hoffman et al. continued research of the links among social media use and alcohol-related digital marketing. College students completed online surveys to measure their exposure to social and online media in general and their alcohol-related digital media use and alcohol use. Hoffman et al. found that young people with a positive conotation to alcohol advertising hold more favorable expectancies for drinking, approve of drinking at higher levels, believe drinking is common, and have greater intentions to drink than those that have a negative response to alcohol advertising. Overall, the results showed that participants’ use of digital media alcohol-marketing applications predicted their alcohol consumption and problem drinking. Hoffman et al.’s study gave insight on colle ge student’s opinions on marketing and alcohol and drug use instead of just investigating how prevalent it is in media. The current study included student’s views on marketing to fully understand if the marketing truly affects student’s opinions (see