‘See it doesn’t look pretty does it?’ Young adults’ airbrushed drinking practices on Facebook

Abstract

A range of negative health outcomes are associated with young adults' drinking practices. One key arena where images of, and interaction about, drinking practices occurs is social networking sites, particularly Facebook. This study investigated the ways in which young adults' talked about and understood their uses of Facebook within their drinking practices. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven New Zealand young adults as they displayed, navigated and talked about their Facebook pages and drinking behaviours. Our social constructionist thematic analysis identified three major themes, namely 'friendship group belonging', 'balanced self-display' and 'absences in positive photos'. Drinking photos reinforced friendship group relationships but time and effort was required to limit drunken photo displays to maintain an overall attractive online identity. Positive photos prompted discussion of negative drinking events which were not explicitly represented. Together these understandings of drinking photos function to delimit socially appropriate online drinking displays, effectively 'airbrushing' these visual depictions of young adults' drinking as always pleasurable and without negative consequences. We consider the implications of these findings for ways alcohol health initiatives may intervene to reframe 'airbrushed' drinking representations on Facebook and provoke a deeper awareness among young people of drinking practices and their online displays.

Awareness of, and participation with, user-created alcohol promotion, and the association with higher-risk drinking in young adults

“…Nevertheless, that participants were most exposed to user-created alcohol promotion on social networking websites supports why such content has featured prominently in exploratory content research (Atkinson et al, 2014;Fournier & Clarke, 2011), experimental studies (Litt & Stock, 2011), longitudinal surveys (Boyle et al, 2016), and qualitative research (Lyons et al, 2014). That the reported awareness of, and participation with, user-created alcohol promotion on social networking websites was higher than previous surveys (e.g.…”

“…Research has also suggested that young adults do not always recognise commercial alcohol marketing (Lyons et al, 2014;Niland, McCreanor, Lyons, & Griffin, 2017). Given the close and interacting relationship between the two (Figure 1) it is therefore possible some participants may have unintentionally reported exposure to content they assumed to be user-created alcohol promotion without recognising that it was in fact commercial marketing (e.g.…”

“…Focus groups and interviews also suggest that the relationship is more complex than implied by an exposure equals consumption hypothesis. Not only are young adults willing to participate with user-created alcohol promotion, but doing has become a valued activity which provides rewards in terms of social and cultural capital (Atkinson et al, 2014;Lyons et al, 2014). It is also suggested the practice of engaging with such promotion is a strategically managed process, with the end product being content that presents consumption, and the associated outcomes, as highly desirable and positive (Niland, Lyons, Goodwin, & Hutton, 2014).…”

‘If I don’t look good, it just doesn’t go up’: A qualitative study of young women’s drinking cultures and practices on Social Network Sites

“…The gap between young men's and women's experiences of drinking and intoxication has begun to narrow as women have become more active participants in night life drinking spaces, and as a result, more women are reporting drinking and drunkenness (Atkinson et al, 2012b;Fuller, 2015;Hibell et al, act as sites of control for women and as contexts in which gender and classed restrictions continue to be being placed upon them (Atkinson et al, 2012a;Bailey et al, 2015;Griffin et al, 2009Nicholls, 2016;Niland et al, 2014).…”

Attending to others: how digital technologies direct young people's nightlife

“…Our understanding of urban night-time activities is dominated by a strong emphasis on alcohol and drug use (Wilton and Moreno, 2012), including the nightliferelated online activities. A growing scholarship is concerned with the "intoxigenic digital spaces" (Griffiths and Casswell, 2010:525) produced through ICTs (Griffiths and Casswell, 2010;Brown and Gregg, 2012;Niland et al, 2014;Lyons et al, 2017); it draws on the "pathologizing of alcohol consumption" (Jayne et al, 2008:249) and predominant understandings of young people as vulnerable and in need of protection (Valentine, 1996;Aitken, 2001). Through the lens of Ahmed's phenomenological reading and reflections on orientation, I have found that young people orientate themselves in much broader ways towards ICTs.…”