Summary: Yes, social media can increase your desire to drink alcohol. Specifically, when social media influencers promote alcohol in their content, desire to drink alcohol can increase among young adults between ages 19 and 24.
Key Points:
- In a nationwide survey on social media use, 85% of adults 18 + in the U.S. report using YouTube, 71% report using Facebook, 50% report using Instagram, and 37% report using TikTok. Data source
- The same survey indicates 95% of adults 18-29 in the U.S. use YouTube, 68% use Facebook, 80% use Instagram, and 63% use TikTok.
- Additional research shows 63.5% of social media influencers post positive messages about drinking alcohol
Social Media Influencers Posting About Alcohol: What Effect Does It Have?
The 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2024 NSDUH) shows that a significant percentage of young adults consume alcohol regularly:
Alcohol Use, Young Adults, 18-25
- Ever used: 73.8%
- Past-month use: 47.5%
- Past-month binge alcohol use: 26.7%
- Past-month heavy alcohol use: 6.0%
- Alcohol use disorder (AUD): 14.4%
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) define binge drinking as “drinking more than four alcoholic beverages (women) and five alcoholic beverages (men) in less than two hours on one occasion.” Both organizations define heavy drinking as “drinking 4 or more drinks on any day or 8 or more drinks per week (women) and drinking 5 or more drinks on any day or 15 or more drinks per week (men).
To be clear, recent evidence shows that even moderate drinking, defined as one drink a day for men and two drink a day for women, can increase risk of:
- Premature mortality
- Chronic illness, i.e. diabetes
- 7 types of cancer:
- Mouth
- Throat
- Larynx
- Esophagus
- Breast
- Liver
- Colon/colorectal
- Heart disease
That’s why understanding all the factors associated with alcohol use are important: almost everything we used to know about drinking has been turned on its head, with our most trusted and reputable public health organizations – the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – making it known in no uncertain terms that:
“Compared to not drinking, drinking alcohol in moderation may increase your overall risks of death and chronic disease.”
That’s a long way from the old myth that “drinking a glass or two of wine after dinner is good for your health.” But that’s how science works. When new data appear, we revise our conclusions. This new data shows there’s really no level of alcohol consumption that’s good for your health: that’s where we are in 2026.
With all that in mind, let’s take a look at that study on whether social media can influence your desire to drink alcohol.
The Experiment: Simulated Social Media Feeds
In the research letter “Exposure to Alcohol-Related Social Media Content and Desire to Drink Among Young Adults,” researcher recruited 2,000 young adults between age 18 and 24 and divided them into two group. One group watched a simulated social media feed with 20 Instagram posts that included positive images from social media influencers associated with alcohol consumption, and the other group watched a simulated social media feed with 20 Instagram posts from social media influencers that had nothing at all to do with alcohol.
Here’s what they found. Young adults who:
- Watched the feed with social media influencers promoting alcohol use:
- 73 times more likely to have an increased desire to drink alcohol.
- Reported using alcohol in the past 30 days:
- 4 times more likely to have an increased desire to drink alcohol.
- Reported binge drinking in the past 30 days:
- 3 times more likely to have an increased desire to drink alcohol.
- Watched a feed with a social media influencer they consider highly credible promoting alcohol use:
- 5 times more likely to have an increased desire to drink alcohol.
Here’s how the researchers view these results:
“Exposure to alcohol-promoting social media content was associated with desire to drink across varying levels of prior alcohol use, and social media influencers may contribute to normalization of alcohol consumption among young people.”
That’s a major finding. Social media influencers can increase the desire to engage in behaviors that are clearly bad for health. Young adults – who show the highest rates of binge drinking and the second highest rates of heavy drinking among all demographic groups – demonstrate significant vulnerability to social media influencer posts associated with drinking.
Social Media and Drinking: Follow the Science, Not the Fads
When we consider the data on Instagram and drinking among young adults together with the data showing that 80 percent of young adults use Instagram, we realize that what we see is a perfect storm brewing. Most people in the U.S. don’t know about the new data on the health risks of moderate alcohol consumption. If they do, they don’t truly understand the risks. Over half of adults 18+ in the U.S. report past-month alcohol use. Almost half of young adults report past-month alcohol use.
Clearly there’s a disconnect.
The data show that millions of adults and young adults risk their health with alcohol use each month. It also means social media influencers – according to the data – can play a role in increasing the desire to drink among young adults. When a young adult thinks the influencer is highly credible, the risk increases significantly.
Here’s how the research team understands these results:
“Addressing social media’s role in shaping alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors may be critical for curbing alcohol consumption among young adults.”
We agree one hundred percent. The path forward may include more education about the health risks of alcohol. It may include more education about the power social media influencers exert on the behavior of young adults. It will most likely need to include some combination of both. In any case, the research letter we discuss above raises questions we need to answer. The long-term health of young adults in the U.S. may depend on the actions we take over the next several years.
