adminaccording to a US study.
Researchers led by Megan Moreno from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that students who had pictures or posts about getting drunk or blacking out were more likely to be at risk of drinking problems, based on a screening test.
That was not necessarily the case for students who mentioned alcohol or drinking on their pages, but not in a way that showed they drank too much or in unhealthy situations.
“Results suggest that clinical criteria for problem drinking can be applied to Facebook alcohol references,” Moreno and her colleagues wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
They added that it was possible that Facebook pages could help schools find out who needs to be assessed for alcohol-related problems – although privacy and ethical concerns might make that complicated.
The question is whether “what’s being found on these sites . . . is actually predictive of clinical conditions,” said James Rosenquist, a social media researcher and psychiatrist. – Reuters Health.
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