Plans To Study Freshman Drug and Alcohol Use

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on October 9, 2016 under Addiction Trends | Comments are off for this article

Going away to college for the first time is an exciting time for most teenagers. For many, this is the first time they are living away from home, without the constant supervision of their parents. This newfound freedom, combined with the stressors of college and the influence of hundreds of new classmates, can join together to become catalysts for drug use and excessive alcohol consumption. However, these are mainly assumptions and observations, until now.

A new study being conducted among first-year college students seeks to track the actual influences regarding alcohol and drug use. The researchers at Brown University are also looking at the effects of media and social media on these behaviors as well.

“We know that (peers) become more important than parents as a source of information and a source for modeling. Peers are the most influential when it comes to health-related topics. Social networks allow us to study those connections,” explained Nancy Barnett, professor of behavior and social sciences at the School of Public Health at Brown University.

The project will be called Squad2020 and is being conducted by Barnett and a group of students, who came up with the name. The group specifically wanted to target freshman students because they are still at an age where they are developing their friendships, meeting new people and all share the common experience of drastically changing their social environment.

The researchers hope to be able to publish the results of the study in the spring of 2018. The hope is that the study will highlight how social media impacts new college students and their inclination to use drugs and drink. If researchers can better understand the pressures presented to students, they will be more able to develop new methods of prevention and help students in need.

Colleges students throughout the country are faced with much of the same temptations and anxieties. These feelings, paired with the immediate flood of pictures and posts of other students drinking and using drugs can only exasperate the issue.