Private Text Messaging and Social Network Site Use to Facilitate Alcohol Involvement: Comparison of US and Korean College Students

Introduction: Alcohol-related content on public social networking sites (SNS) has been linked to collegiate alcohol use, but we know little about the role of private text messaging in drinking, despite the fact that privacy may be desirable for the sharing of potentially damaging alcohol-related content. Furthermore, what little is known about the role of alcohol-related content online has been learned in studies of Western populations, and privacy motivations differ in collectivist vs. individualist cultures. We examined how private text messaging and SNS are used to facilitate alcohol involvement in the US and Korea, two technologically wired cultures with collegiate alcohol misuse.

Method: 1090 college students in the US and Korea reported on ways in which they use private text messaging and SNS to facilitate alcohol involvement, alongside questions on past year frequency of alcohol use and heavy episodic drinking (HED) and demographic covariates.

Results: Within country t-tests showed that more students in both countries reported using private text messaging (compared to SNS) to find parties, to find post-parties, to feel like they are with friends when drinking alone, to find places to drink with others, and to find rides home after drinking. The magnitude of these differences between private text messaging and SNS posts tended to be larger among the Korean students, though US students showed a stronger preference to find rides home via private messaging and there were no country differences on texting to find a post-party. US students reported using SNS more than text messaging in order to watch their friends party whereas Korean students showed a preference for the use of text messaging to watch their friends party.

Multiple group regressions revealed that all types of alcohol-facilitative private text messaging were related to increased alcohol use frequency and HED in the US (β=.16-.32, p≤.001). In Korea, more frequent alcohol use and HED were associated with using private text messaging to find parties, get rides home, and to find places to drink (β=.11-.24, p≤.02), but not with finding a post-party, watching friends party, or feeling like not drinking alone. In the US, most types of alcohol-facilitative SNS use were not related to frequency of alcohol use or HED (over and above effects of alcohol-facilitative private text messaging). The one exception was that endorsing using SNS to find rides home after drinking or using drugs was associated with more frequent alcohol use and HED (β=.11-.22, p≤.01). In Korea, alcohol facilitative SNS use was less consistently linked with drinking than private text messaging, though using SNS to find places to drink with others and to find a post-party were both related to higher HED (β=.15-.17, p≤.001).

Conclusions: Results show a clear preference in the US and Korea for private text messaging over public SNS for facilitating alcohol use and for stronger links between private messaging and alcohol use frequency and HED. These findings highlight the potential for analysis of private message content to further our understanding of computer mediated social processes in college student drinking and for prevention of collegiate alcohol misuse.