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40% of youth see pictures of alcohol and drug use on social networking sites

Submitted by Administrator on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 06:37

Forty percent of U. S. youth report seeing pictures of kids getting drunk, passed out, or using drugs on Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites, according to data from a 2011 survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Of these youth, approximately 90% had first seen such pictures at age 15 or younger.

Thirty-six percent of respondents said their first exposure was at age 12 or 13 and 42% reported that they first saw images of alcohol and drug abuse when they were 14 or 15. More than one in ten reported that their first exposure was as young as 10 or 11.

These findings corroborate those of another study that found that much of the alcohol-related content on Facebook is easily accessible by those under the age of 21 (see CESAR FAX, Volume 20, Issue 8).