Social Media and Substance Use Risk and Resilience Among US Emerging Adults

Emerging adulthood (ages 18-25 years) is a key developmental period with unique challenges, including the fact that emerging adults experience elevated risk of substance use and adverse mental health outcomes (e.g., eating disorders) compared to those in other age groups. This key developmental period also offers unique opportunities for interventions to prevent adverse substance use outcomes in adulthood. Research suggests several relevant targets for preventive interventions in this age group. This includes the role of social stressors (e.g., stigma), targeted marketing, and sociocultural appearance ideals (pressure to fit into narrow physical appearance standards); these exposures can exacerbate body dissatisfaction, which has been linked to substance use and adverse mental health outcomes. Online environments, especially social media (e.g., Instagram), offer unprecedented access to supportive resources for emerging adults, but also provide new channels for harmful exposure to stigmatizing messages, targeted marketing by alcohol and tobacco industries, and sociocultural appearance ideals. It is not known how social media should be leveraged to prevent substance use among emerging adults. To date, no intervention has been developed to address the unique impact of online stressors and resilience factors on body dissatisfaction and substance use for emerging adults. In response to these research gaps, my long-term goal is to develop, test, and disseminate effective interventions for substance use prevention among young people. My objective for this proposal is to obtain training in (1) theory and methods for research on social media and health behaviors, (2) technology-based behavioral intervention development and testing, and (3) community- engaged research, which I will apply to the proposed research. Informed by Social Stress Theory and a Transactional Model of social media effects, the specific aims of this research are to: 1) investigate emerging adult (18-25 years) experiences and intervention needs related to social media, body dissatisfaction and substance use; and 2) engage a community advisory board (CAB) to develop a brief, online-administered social media intervention to reduce body dissatisfaction and substance use risk in emerging adults and test the intervention for feasibility and acceptability. The intensive career development training and the research findings from this study will lay the groundwork for future testing and dissemination of intervention materials.