Although previous studies have examined alcohol-related posts on social media, the variety in studied platforms and features has been limited. Therefore, by conducting 26 go-along interviews (age 14–18, M = 16.31, SD = .84), this study investigated (1) whether alcohol-related posts differ across SNS features (i.e., chat, feed, story, snap) and (2) whether privacy management strategies play a role in adolescents’ decisions to disclose these different alcohol posts across different SNS features. The findings of this study underline the important role of features’ affordances. Particularly, based on the public visibility of a feature, adolescents reported eliminating certain audiences (e.g., peers, parents) by adapting privacy settings or by strategically selecting more private features before sharing transgressive alcohol posts on these features. In all, this paper broadens the current knowledge about the depiction of alcohol posts in the heterogeneous media landscape. Implications for interventions are proposed.

COVID-19 and measures to contain it may have impacted college students’ behavior, including their drinking behavior. Students’ drinking may have decreased—for example, due to the closure of bars—bu...

Go-along interviews among adolescents ( N = 26, M _age = 16.31, SD = .83) were conducted to examine how adolescents interpret alcohol posts in terms of appropriateness and how this, in turn, plays a role in adolescents’ reactions toward alcohol posts on public and private social media entries. The findings of this study, first, indicate that alcohol posts were classified as appropriate or inappropriate based on the amount of alcohol and the displayed behavior in the post. Second, most posts, including inappropriate ones, received positive or no feedback. Moreover, adolescents deliberately seemed to withhold negative feedback out of fear of being misjudged by peers. Still, negative reactions were expressed more quickly in safer off- and online environments (i.e., face-to-face conversation and online chat messages) because they were visible to close friends only. This is important in view of prevention as it unravels the interesting role of private environments in stimulating negative interpersonal communication.

Research has shown that young individuals frequently turn to social networking sites (SNSs) to monitor others’ behaviors. This is especially likely with Snapchat, as this platform offers extensive monitoring options in real time, for instance through the use of the “snap map”. However, despite the growth of surveillance features, little is known about the use of these features and their possible association with individuals’ mental health. Consequently, this cross-sectional survey among 16- to 25-year-olds (N = 360, Mage = 19.51) examines (1) whether individuals with a higher need for popularity are more likely to engage in Snapchat surveillance behaviors, (2) whether these behaviors, in turn, are associated with indicators of individuals’ mental health, specifically feelings of loneliness and depressive symptoms, and (3) whether fear of missing out mediates the association between surveillance behaviors and these mental health indicators. The findings show that a higher need for popularity is associated with the monitoring of others through Snapchat, which, in turn, was associated with health indicators via fear of missing out. These associations were, however, not found for general Snapchat use, indicating that specific uses of this platform are more detrimental than others. Future research should, therefore, focus more thoroughly on the relationships between specific SNS behaviors and individuals’ mental health.