Researcher gets $864k to study boozy teens

A three-year study of how young adults use social networking sites such as Facebook to brag about their drinking escapades has landed a $864,000 grant from the prestigious Marsden Fund.

Massey University senior psychology lecturer Antonia Lyons will lead the project, which she believes may yield valuable information on how public health messages can be tailored to target young binge drinkers.

Problem youth drinking has come under the microscope in New Zealand with recent research showing teenagers now start drinking at a younger age and are drinking more. This has led to public health fears and concern around safety issues such as drink driving. Critics say the lower drinking age and easy access to cheap alcohol have made things only worse.

The three-year research project, called Young Adults, Drinking Stories and the Cult of Celebrity, starts in February and will involve academics across a range of disciplines. The money from the Marsden Fund will also fund three PhD students on scholarship to help with data collection.

By interviewing groups of young people from different backgrounds, the researchers will learn how groups of friends tell drinking stories, and will track young drinkers' use of technology such as digital cameras and recorders and the internet to share these experiences.

The researchers will also investigate how young people recreate their identity and "celebritise" themselves by putting images and posts on sites such as Facebook, Bebo and YouTube.

Lyons said existing research shows drinking stories play a role in "identity construction" and maintaining "friendship groups".

"It's not just about the night, it's about the stories that get told and retold and retold about that night or the drinking – `remember that night when you were really, really trashed'."

What had changed in recent years was the method of telling these stories through new technologies.

Lyons said the research may also help health workers trying to address New Zealand's youth drinking problems, by giving them a better picture of what young people are doing. "Television ads are fine, but if they [young people] are actually on the internet most of the time, they're not going to be able to see them."

Alcohol experts say the liquor industry is increasingly using new technology, including social networking sites, to reach younger drinkers.

Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams said young people were vulnerable to such advertising, which often fell beneath parental radars.

She would like to see all such advertising banned and was excited about the research project, saying it would be valuable in keeping health watchdogs up to date with the practices of savvy marketers.