Vashishtha, R., Holmes, J. orcid.org/0000-0001-9283-2151, Pennay, A. et al. (2 more authors) (2022) An examination of the role of changes in country-level leisure time internet use and computer gaming on adolescent drinking in 33 European countries. International Journal of Drug Policy, 100. 103508. ISSN 0955-3959
Abstract
Introduction
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.
Methods
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.
Results
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 <0.001 and 95% CI = 0.033–0.054). However, at a country-level, we did not find any association between within-country changes in daily computer activities and regular drinking (β = 0.031, p-value = 0.652 and 95% CI = -0.103–0.164.
Conclusion
Findings from this study suggest that broad cultural shifts towards increased computer-based activities among adolescents has played a little or no role in declining adolescent drinking. Future research should be directed towards examining other high-level cultural changes which may have influenced cross-national reductions in adolescent drinking.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Elsevier B.V. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in International Journal of Drug Policy. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Adolescent drinking trends; Adolescent internet use; ESPAD countries |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number WELLCOME TRUST (THE) 208090/Z/17/Z |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Nov 2021 10:02 |
Last Modified: | 29 Oct 2022 00:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103508 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:180642 |