From the HUFF POST:
Some researchers who worked on the study acknowledged that it didn’t analyze whether social network use influences illicit behavior. According to a blog post on SFGate:
The research wasn’t set up to determine a cause and effect “in part because human will – the individual’s decision to use illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco – always comes into play,” Steve Wagner of QEV Analytics, a Washington, D.C., research firm that did part of the study.
Some teens may feel left out when they see peers drinking and having fun on Facebook, but Time magazine questioned whether seeing a picture of someone using a controlled substance influences actual substance use…
Click here to read the full article.
EDITOR: Facebook participants are a self selected group. Therefor this is not necessarily a matter of “cause and effect.”
Nevertheless, it is worrisome and perhaps somewhat representative of our youngsters being exposed prematurely to influences. The Watchdog has railed about the binge drinking by college students.
Are high school students influenced by college student postings? Is Facebook diluting the positive influences or family and community? Is the Watchdog an old fuddy duddy? (Soon thirteen year old daughter Sarah certainly thinks so.)
