NCJ Number
224279
Date Published
October 2008
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This study examined teen viewing of online videos related to drug and/or alcohol use during June 2008
Abstract
The study found that nearly 1 million teens (5 percent of teens who viewed online videos in June 2008) viewed drug-related videos. They watched 1.2 million drug-related videos during this 1-month period. Fifty-seven percent of these teen viewers of drug-related videos were female, and 35 percent were younger than 16 years old. Almost 40 percent of the drug-related videos viewed by teens contained the explicit use of drugs and/or intoxication. Eight-five percent of the videos that contained explicit drug use or intoxication had comments that promoted substance use. The study identified a sample of 13- to 18-year-olds within Nielsen Online panel. The behavior monitored by the panel captures all Internet activity. Video streams for the target group were identified for the period of June 2008. An extensive list of drug slang was used to perform a textual analysis of video titles. Researchers viewed the streams in order to determine content type, and all user comments were examined to determine whether the comments promoted drug use.