An examination of the role of changes in country-level leisure time internet use and computer gaming on adolescent drinking in 33 European countries

Adolescent alcohol consumption has been declining in many high-income countries since the turn of this century. Research investigating the plausible explanations for these declines has been mostly based on individual-level studies, which are largely inconclusive. Changes in leisure time internet use...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The International journal of drug policy 2022-02, Vol.100, p.103508-103508, Article 103508
Main Authors: Vashishtha, Rakhi, Holmes, John, Pennay, Amy, Dietze, Paul M., Livingston, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior
Adolescent drinking trends
Adolescent internet use
Adolescents
Alcohol
Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology
Alcohol use
Computer & video games
Computers
Consumption
Cultural change
Drug policy
ESPAD countries
Humans
Individual differences
International comparisons
Internet
Internet Use
Leisure
Leisure Activities
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Teenagers
Time
Time use
Underage Drinking
Video Games
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Summary:Adolescent alcohol consumption has been declining in many high-income countries since the turn of this century. Research investigating the plausible explanations for these declines has been mostly based on individual-level studies, which are largely inconclusive. Changes in leisure time internet use and computer gaming (referred to in this article as ‘computer activities’) have been hypothesised to play a role in declining adolescent alcohol consumption at a country-level. The aim of this study was to examine the association between country-level changes over time in computer activities and adolescent drinking in 33 European countries. This is a multi-level repeated cross-national study examining the role of changes over time in country-level and individual-level computer activities on regular drinking. We utilised four waves of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs (ESPAD) from 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. At an individual-level the primary exposure of interest was daily engagement in computer activities and aggregated means were used to measure country-level daily computer activities in each included country. Data were analysed using three-level hierarchical linear probability methods. In the fully adjusted model, for between individual effects, we found significant positive association between daily computer activities and regular drinking (β = 0.043, p-value
ISSN:0955-3959
1873-4758
1873-4758
DOI:10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103508