Is Facebook bad for your child's health? Teenagers are more likely to smoke and drink if they see pictures of friends partying on the site

• Study found that adolescents are influenced by friends' online pictures 

• Myspace use is associated with heavier drinking than Facebook use is 

• Teenagers who use Facebook instead of Myspace tend to get better grades and come from a more affluent background, however

Using Facebook could make teenagers more likely to drink and smoke, a new report suggests.

Teenagers who see friends smoking and drinking alcohol in photographs posted on Facebook are more likely to smoke and drink themselves, according to the report.

‘Our study shows that adolescents can be influenced by their friends’ online pictures to smoke or drink alcohol,’ said Dr Thomas Valente, professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California and the study’s principal investigator.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply social network analysis methods to examine how teenagers’ activities on online social networking sites influence their smoking and alcohol use.’

Dr Valente and his team surveyed 1,563 15 and 16-year-old students about their online and offline friendship networks, the frequency of their social media use, their smoking, and their alcohol consumption.

The researchers found that the size of a student’s online network of friends was not significantly associated with risky behaviour. 

Exposure to friends’ online pictures of partying or drinking, however, was significantly associated with both smoking and alcohol use.

Teenagers whose close friends did not drink alcohol were more likely to be affected by increasing exposure to risky online pictures.

‘The evidence suggests that friends’ online behaviours are a viable source of peer influence,’ said Dr Grace Huang, the study’s first and corresponding author. ‘This is important to know, given that 95 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds in the United States access the Internet every day, and 80 per cent of those youth use online social networking sites to communicate.’

Nearly 30 per cent of survey’s respondents had smoked and more than half had had at least one drink of alcohol.

Roughly one-third of the students reported having at least one friend who smoked and/or consumed alcohol

Almost half of all students reported visiting Facebook and Myspace regularly.
Between October 2010 and April 2011, Facebook use - 75 per cent - increased while Myspace use - 13 per cent - decreased.
On average, 34 per cent of students had at least one friend who talked about partying online and 20 per cent reported that their friends posted drinking pictures online.
In line with earlier studies, the researchers observed differences between Facebook and Myspace users.
Facebook-only users had higher grades, spoke more English at home and were more likely to have a higher socio-economic status.
They were less likely to be Hispanic and less likely to have ever smoked or consumed alcohol.
While Facebook use did not seem to affect smoking or drinking, the study found that higher levels of Myspace use was associated with higher levels of drinking.
‘Little is known about how social media use affects adolescent health behaviours,’ said Dr Huang, who is a post-doctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute.
‘Our study suggests that it may be beneficial to teach teens about the harmful effects of posting risky behaviours online and how those displays can hurt their friends.’