Using Social Media to Engage Students on Topics of
Alcohol Use on Campus
Kira Busse, Emma Cooke, Andrew Hosch, Abigail Oldham, Merrick Purcell
INTRODUCTION
The use and abuse of alcohol has become a
rising trend on college campuses. It has been reported that
20% of college students abstain from alcohol, 20% drink
frequently, and 28% report being drunk three or more
times in the past month (Murphy et al, 2005). This
drinking among college students can then lead to short-
term consequences and health risk behaviors. Our group
decided to act upon these facts to improve the culture and
learn more about drinking on our own college campus.
Social media platforms are a place where students feel they
are part of a community and the elements of the
community mixed with the activities of the students make
whatever social media platform they are using a quite
extravagant network of intercommunication amongst one
another (DeAndrea et al, 2012). We used Twitter to
conduct various polls and give out useful information to
students going out to drink on the weekends. We
hypothesized that by using social media, Twitter
specifically, we would reach the largest audience in
educating on alcohol use and abuse on college campuses.
GOALS
 Educate students on alcohol use and abuse on college
campuses through the use of Twitter.
 Gage general understanding of students’ tendencies in
alcohol consumption on college campuses.
 Reach a larger audience through the use of Twitter
METHODS
Participants
The participants for this study were recruited from
twitter. All of our participants follow the twitter account
DUyouDrinkLC, and most are students at Loras College in
Dubuque, Iowa. The account has just under 100 followers,
with engagement on each tweet being between 100 and
250 followers. One tweet even had over 650 impressions.
Procedure
For our project we targeted the Loras College Student
body through creating a Twitter account where we conducted
surveys and polls. The surveys consisted of questions
regarding alcohol use amongst college students. These polls
were followed up with tweets containing useful information
on past research as well as tips for healthy drinking habits.
These included the Jule (Dubuque public bus) schedule,
phone number and weather updates. This was intended to help
students have a safe night out when they choose to consume
alcohol. Results of the polls were looked at to record the level
of knowledge that students generally have on alcohol use.
Engagement of the tweets was looked at in order to record the
amount of people that were being exposed to them.
Loras College
Drugs and Human Behavior
Advisor: Dr. Sarah Cassella
INTERVENTIONS USED
Representative Tweet 1
In this tweet, we asked people how they
choose what to drink when they go out. This shows
one of the ways that we were able to use twitter to
gather information on the habits of college students
when they go out drinking. The results from this tweet
show that students are more likely to buy whatever is
cheapest, rather than a drink they enjoy more.
Representative Tweet 2
Our second example, is a quoted tweet which
includes information about the Jule. The Jule is the City of
Dubuque’s bus system, which has a nightrider bus. This bus
runs all night, is free to Loras College students and is a
great resource for people going to and from the bars. By
taking the bus it ensures that students are taking the safest
form of transportation and reduces the temptation to drive
after a night of drinking. Sharing this tweet was one of the
ways we were able to share valuable information about safe
drinking habits with a large group of people through twitter.
Representative Tweet 1 Results of Representative Tweet 1
For both figures, the left pictures are of the tweet we sent
out from our DUyouDrinkLC Twitter account. The
pictures on the right are the activity reports that Twitter
generates for each tweet.
Representative Tweet 2 Representative Tweet 2 Results
CONCLUSIONS
The tweets that were sent out were educational
and opinion based polls that engaged college students. The
Twitter account had just under 100 followers but each tweet
had between 100 an 200 interactions. Our groups goal was to
reach a larger number of college students on social media in
order to educate them on alcohol use and abuse. The various
tweets sent out by our Twitter account had between 450 and
600 Impressions. On Twitter, Impressions are the number of
times the tweet was seen on an individual’s Twitter feed.
Although we did not have that many followers, Twitter
tracks the trends( likes), retweets and advertises them to
other Twitter users.
In the end, our study was successful on
educating and gathering more information on alcohol uses
and abuse on college campuses. Not only did people see our
tweet, but a large number of users would then click on our
Twitter profile where they could view more information and
resources about alcohol use on college campuses. Drinking
among college students is prevalent and leads to short-term
consequences and health risks. By using Twitter, our group
effectively surveyed and educated college students in a way
in which college students can relate.
GROUP REFLECTION
We were hoping to further educate students, as
well as gather data on drinking habits at Loras. Through a
series of tweets we were able to learn the reasons why
students consume alcohol. Along with conducting surveys
our group tasks included tweeting various educational tweets
and statistics about use and consumption of alcohol. We
believe our attempt and effort in targeting Loras College
students helped spread more awareness about the uses of
alcohol by college students in a college setting. One of the
things we wished we did was send more tweets out across
the semester to get a greater understanding of the drinking
habits of Loras College students across the semester.
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