Adolescents May Drink More Because of Media Habits

Researchers from Sweden and colleagues from the United Kingdom are closely looking at the connection between the media practices of adolescents and their consumption of alcohol. According to an article in Science Daily, a professor of practical philosophy, Christian Munthe, says there appears to be a strong link between adolescents who watch Tv shows involving alcohol and an increased level of drinking.

There is not a lot of research taking place on what needs to be done about the problem. Munthe hopes adolescents will use Twitter and Facebook to share opinions so they can gain new information, as they know adolescents feel degraded by community campaigns and organizations that come to schools to educate them about the dangers of underage drinking.

A project funded by a European Commission named the Daphne III has studied the correlation among young people ages 10 to 25 and has targeted their media habits along with their alcohol consumption. The project, called Alcopop Tv Culture, aims to understand how the responsibility for this problem can be handled and divided up among the different parties from the media companies, state authorities, alcohol industry companies, families and the young adults themselves.

Researchers believe responsibility needs to be shared and that media corporations have a huge moral liability, but it should be left up to the government to make decisions on the convenience of alcohol. The goal in Europe is to decide on and draft a sort of policy roadmap as to how all parties can share the responsibility for this problem due to the volatile growth of the media.