Disentangling alcohol-related social media effects: A multimethod approach to explore the role of different socializing agents and different message types across platforms.

Worldwide alcohol use is a major public health concern leading to 3.3 million deaths annually. Even though alcohol is risky for all age groups, youth tend to be the most vulnerable to alcohol-related harm. Therefore, it is crucial to obtain an in-depth insight into all factors contributing to youths' alcohol consumption. Recently, a number of cross-sectional studies indicated that individuals exposed to peers’ positive alcohol-related social media messages increase their alcohol use, show more positive attitudes towards alcohol, believe that peers frequently use alcohol and would approve of this behavior. It is the ambition of this project to substantially extend this line of research and to address several of its limitations. In particular, the study aims (1) to gain a comprehensive overview of youths' experiences with and evaluations of alcohol content, (2) to ascertain youths' attention to alcohol content, and (3) to establish the causal relation between alcohol-related social media usage and alcohol use. Thereby, this study will be the first to take (a) different socialization agents (peers en social media influencers) and (b) different social media message types across platforms (public - private, persistent - ephemeral content) into consideration. In order to reach these ambitious aims, an innovative mixed-method approach including cross-sectional research, content analysis, eye-tracking research, experimental research, and qualitative focus group interviews will be used.