Heavy drinking and social media: Peer misperceptions and relationships in social networks.

Authors

Megan Strowger, Matthew K Meisel, Anna E Jaffe, Michelle Haikalis, Michelle L Rogers, Aditya S Khanna, Nancy P Barnett

Published in

Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors. Oct 26, 2026. Epub Oct 26, 2026.

Abstract

College students who consume alcohol tend to overestimate their peers' drinking; this misperception is predictive of their own greater consumption. Alcohol-related content (ARC) shared by peers may contribute to these misperceptions, but key associations with ARC are underexplored. This study examined whether relationship qualities with specific peers were associated with misperceptions of peer heavy episodic drinking (HED) and with ARC posting frequency and whether misperceptions were associated with greater participant drinking and consequences.
College students (N = 968; M_age = 21.16; 61.6% female; 56.4% White) completed an online survey about their social media use, alcohol use, consequences, and ARC posting. In a social network survey, they reported their relationships with and the perceived behaviors of up to 20 peers from their class year.
A cross-classified multilevel model showed that drinking more frequently with a peer was associated with greater overestimates of that peer's HED and lower underestimates of ARC posting frequency. Conversely, communicating more frequently with a peer was associated with lower overestimates of peer HED but lower underestimates of peer ARC posting frequency. Network autocorrelation models revealed that greater overestimates in peer HED and lower underestimates in peer ARC posting frequency were associated with higher participant alcohol quantity and consequences.
Findings suggest that shared drinking activities and closer relationships may amplify misperceptions of peer drinking and ARC posting, which are linked to greater alcohol risk. Social network normative feedback interventions could be useful in correcting these misperceptions to reduce their influence on drinking behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:
42932796
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.