As technology affects various aspects of our culture, what does this mean for experimentation with drugs and alcohol? Are illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco more or less acceptable today? With so much information available about health and lifestyle choices, one could certainly take some guesses.
Has technology made the use of drugs and alcohol more acceptable?
The use of drugs and alcohol and which factors influence people, especially teens and adolescents, to start using these substances has always been a weighty topic. A new dimension is being lent to this debate in the form of Internet usage and other modern technology.
It has long been established that peer pressure is one of the reasons many teens start drinking and try new drugs or take up smoking. With social media and all the platforms it provides making communication easier than ever before, it is very easy for teens, adolescents and even adults to see how their contemporaries are out having fun and how often this “fun” involves drinking and drugs. This leads to creating a mindset that drugs and alcohol are imperative to having fun. The use of social media also makes it much easier to find drugs and to find parties and places where it is easy to find these substances of abuse, even for minors.
Multiple studies have been conducted to show the link between social media use and substance abuse. CASAColumbia at Columbia University conducted a teen survey in 2011 and according to the results teens who spend time on social media are more at risk of displaying substance abuse behavior. They are 5 times more likely to use tobacco, thrice as likely to use alcohol and twice as likely to use marijuana as compared to those of their peers who spend little to no time on social media.
Many researchers have found that the majority of teens have seen pictures of their friends on social media with drinks and drugs, with a cigarette in hand or passed out after a session of substance use. The majority of these teens are less than 15 years of age which means they are being subjected to these influences at a very impressionable age.
In the US the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has reported that 90% of addicts started substance abuse when they were less than 18 years of age.
In addition to the above influence, it is also obvious that alcohol and tobacco companies use Internet Ads and social media as a platform to glorify their products and advertise to all age ranges. Movies and TV series also show drinking and drug use as common and as a means to loosen up and have fun.
The above arguments make it obvious that the Internet has had quite an influence on drug and alcohol use and making it more acceptable and available even though both have been around since before the advent of the Internet.
