How does technology influence young people’s drinking? A complex relationship in need of innovation

Abstract

Changes in technology use and increased uptake of new forms of digital technology have been hypothesised as one of the key drivers for declining drinking among young people. Although some research has attempted to draw links between technology and young people’s drinking, little work has unpacked this complex relationship with reference to the multitude of ways technology has become a central component of young people’s lives. In this article, we suggest that the embeddedness of technologies can shape young people’s relationships with alcohol in dynamic ways that go beyond previous research, which has largely focused on deterministic relationships and associations. We discuss the multitude of effects digital technologies have on drinking practices at the micro (how young people do identity work), meso (their social practices and relationships) and macro level (the cultural norms and imperatives around alcohol). At all of these levels, digital technologies are implicated in increasing, reducing, destabilising, and transforming young people’s drinking. We suggest several ways forward for research using more theoretically informed approaches. Given these different layers – micro, macro and meso – need to be acknowledged as important mediators, a more nuanced approach to the various configurations of drinking and non-drinking practices digital technologies afford is essential in the design of future research.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• young people
• digital technology
• declining drinking
• youth drinking
• theoretical methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects Funding Scheme (Project Number DP160101380). AP is supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE190101074). ML is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (1123840).