When are alcohol-related blackout Tweets written in the United States?
Blackouts
Celebratory drinking
Social networking sites
Twitter
Journal
Addictive behaviors
ISSN: 1873-6327
Titre abrégé: Addict Behav
Pays: England
ID NLM: 7603486
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
01 2022
01 2022
Historique:
received:
18
04
2021
revised:
14
07
2021
accepted:
01
09
2021
pubmed:
17
9
2021
medline:
6
11
2021
entrez:
16
9
2021
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Alcohol use varies throughout the year and often peaks on weekends or during celebrations (e.g., New Year's). There is not a perfect correlation between alcohol use and negative consequences, and the extent to which one particularly risky consequence-an alcohol-related blackout-is more common during certain times of the year is unknown. Identifying when blackouts occur may help identify which periods are associated with more risk and be critical in designing public health campaigns. Thus, we examined Twitter data to ascertain whether alcohol-related blackouts occur more during certain holidays/celebrations than typical weekends and whether they differed in timing from general alcohol-related Tweets. We used a Twitter-sponsored platform to access unique Tweets written in the United States referencing blackouts (e.g., "blackout") and alcohol generally (e.g., "drunk"). The final dataset included 3.5 million blackout Tweets and 591 million alcohol Tweets (written between 2009 and 2020). Both blackout and alcohol Tweets were written in the late evening, on weekends, and during certain holidays (New Years, St. Patrick's). However, relative to typical weekends, only blackout Tweets were more common during Thanksgiving and only general alcohol-related Tweets were more common during Cinco de Mayo. While blackout and alcohol-related Tweets were similar in time of day (peaking in the evening) and day of week (peaking on weekends), they differed during certain celebrations/holidays, suggesting that while alcohol use may be more common during some celebrations, others are more associated with serious harms.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
Alcohol use varies throughout the year and often peaks on weekends or during celebrations (e.g., New Year's). There is not a perfect correlation between alcohol use and negative consequences, and the extent to which one particularly risky consequence-an alcohol-related blackout-is more common during certain times of the year is unknown. Identifying when blackouts occur may help identify which periods are associated with more risk and be critical in designing public health campaigns. Thus, we examined Twitter data to ascertain whether alcohol-related blackouts occur more during certain holidays/celebrations than typical weekends and whether they differed in timing from general alcohol-related Tweets.
METHODS
We used a Twitter-sponsored platform to access unique Tweets written in the United States referencing blackouts (e.g., "blackout") and alcohol generally (e.g., "drunk").
RESULTS
The final dataset included 3.5 million blackout Tweets and 591 million alcohol Tweets (written between 2009 and 2020). Both blackout and alcohol Tweets were written in the late evening, on weekends, and during certain holidays (New Years, St. Patrick's). However, relative to typical weekends, only blackout Tweets were more common during Thanksgiving and only general alcohol-related Tweets were more common during Cinco de Mayo.
CONCLUSION
While blackout and alcohol-related Tweets were similar in time of day (peaking in the evening) and day of week (peaking on weekends), they differed during certain celebrations/holidays, suggesting that while alcohol use may be more common during some celebrations, others are more associated with serious harms.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34530209
pii: S0306-4603(21)00295-1
doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107110
pii:
doi:
Substances chimiques
Ethanol
3K9958V90M
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
107110Informations de copyright
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