The association between social media use and substance use behaviour among adolescents: The ABCD-Study

It has been hypothesized that more time spend on social media is related to a higher likelihood of high levels of substance use. It is expected that this association is moderated by parental rules regarding screen time and substance use, leading to a less strong relationship between social media use and substance use behaviour when parental rules are present.

We used data from the Amsterdam Born Children and Development study measured at age 15-16 years (N=1787). We specifically investigated whether both frequent and problematic social media use (SMU) predicted the frequency and intensity of tobacco, alcohol, hashish/marijuana, and laughing gas intake, by using ordinal logistic regression models. Additionally, we examined whether parental rules on screen time and substances (smoking/alcohol/drugs), moderated the relationships between frequent and problematic use of social media, and substance use.

More frequent SMU, and problematic SMU behaviour were associated with tobacco intake at both higher frequency (OR=1.17[95%CI:1.09-1.26]; OR=1.20[95%CI:1.10-1.30]), and intensity level (OR=1.22[95%CI:1.10-1.35]; OR=1.16[95%CI:1.04-1.29]). Adolescents with more frequent SMU, and problematic SMU were more likely to engage in frequent binge drinking (OR=1.24[95%CI:1.15-1.34]; OR=1.11[95%CI:1.02-1.20]), and consume more alcohol units per week (OR=1.21[95%CI:1.14-1.29]; OR=1.10[95%CI:1.02-1.18]). Also, increased frequency of daily SMU, and problematic SMU score were associated with hashish/marijuana (OR=1.18[95%CI:1.11-1.26]; OR=1.10[95%CI:1.02-1.19]) and laughing gas intake (OR=1.15[95%CI:1.03-1.29]; OR=1.15[95%CI:1.03-1.30]) at higher frequency levels. Finally, parental rules on drugs and alcohol seem to be less effective in preventing frequent hashish/marijuana use (p=0.001), and binge drinking (p=0.013) among adolescents with higher problematic social media engagement.

This study confirmed the relationships between both the frequent and disordered use of social network sites, and more frequent and intense use of a broad spectrum of substances that adolescents are exposed to nowadays. Parental control in an early stage, however, might still play an important role in protecting adolescents from developing both disordered social media and substance use behaviour.