Understanding Blackout Drinking Among Young Adults via Twitter

Abstract

This study sought to understand when, where, and with whom adolescents and young adults are engaging in excessive alcohol consumption, often referred to as “blackout drinking”. This form of risky drinking is most prevalent among young adults and is associated with numerous consequences including alcohol-induced memory loss, negative sexual encounters, drug use, and alcohol poisoning. It is important to understand the factors that influence this behavior to develop appropriate prevention and intervention strategies. The social context of a drinking event including where and under what circumstances drinking occurs is associated with levels of alcohol consumption. Furthermore, it is known that young adults use social media to regularly communicate about their behavior. Thus, this study systematically examined what people described about the social context of drinking on Twitter. This study utilized 10,000 randomly sampled Twitter messages or “tweets” related to blackout drinking. Tweets were collected based on key word search criteria such as “blackout”, “blacked out” and “binge drinking”. We then conducted a content analysis of the tweets on coding factors related to social context such as location, size of gathering, event, drug use, type of alcohol consumed, any age references, who purchased the alcohol, the relationship of others present, and the drinking behavior of others present. Results suggested that type of alcohol consumed, location, and relationship of those present were the most relevant factors in portraying blackout drinking. These factors reflect important determinants of alcohol use including alcohol branding and marketing and represent important targets for prevention.