Association between social media as a stress factor and drug use among young people. Findings from the "LifeOnSoMe"-study.

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate associations between experiencing own use of social media as stressful and use of illegal drugs among young people.

Methods: This study is based on data from the school-based "LifeOnSoMe"-study, conducted among upper secondary school students aged 16-21 years in Bergen, Norway (n= 3 295). The independent variable is a measure of to what extent own use of social media is experienced as stressful, with five response categories ranging from "Not at all" to "Very much". Dependent variables include drug use: tried illegal drugs, frequency of cannabis use (dichotomized) and CRAFFT (dichotomized). Age, gender, subjective socioeconomic statut and two measures of amount of social media use were included as confounders. Analyses of data included use of binary logistic regression analyses.

Results: All regression analyses showed that the more young people experienced social media as a stress factor, the higher were the odds of using illegal drugs. Among all regression analyses, all showed significant associations, except the unadjusted analyses of frequency of cannabis use and CRAFFT. In the fully adjusted analyses, odds ratios were 1.15 (illegal drugs), 1.19 (cannabis use) and 1.22 (CRAFFT).

Conclusion: Experiencing social media as a stress factor in their lives is associated with higher odds of drug use among young people. Before drawing firm conclusions about the implications of these results for health promotion interventions, further research in this area is needed. Prospective longitudinal studies and qualitative studies can shed more light on issues related to causality.