Facebook causes drug use

[Anamnesis]

So does "Jersey Shore" and "Teen Mom".

Researchers from Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance abuse found that teens who use Facebook or other social networking sites every day are three times as likely to drink, twice as likely to use marijuana, and five times more likely to smoke. Seventy percent of 12 to 17-year-old use these sites every day, and it's pretty obvious that Facebook itself is the root of the problem. Study author Joseph A Califano, Jr. explains:

"The findings in this year's survey should strike Facebook fear into the hearts of parents of young children and drive home the need for parents to give their children the will and skill to keep their heads above the water of the corrupting cultural currents their children must navigate."

 

[Polly Parrot]

I like how you can "like" and "share" this here article on Facebook.

And it's probably the same sort of people who blame Marilyn Manson for the Columbine shootings, or other music for any bad behaviour.

 

[sparkchaser]

Stupid.


The common-sense rebuttal to that:

Alt Text: Teens Are Getting High on Social Media | Underwire | Wired.com

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Apparently teenagers who use social networks are more likely to drink, smoke, take drugs and presumably worship Satan in his dark majesty than teenagers who don’t use social networks.

I’m sure your reaction is the same as mine: “There are teenagers who don’t use social networks?” I’m guessing they don’t use social networks because the patriarch of the compound has declared TCP/IP a tool of the secular conspiracy. Which, to be fair, it kind of is.

If I’m right — and I haven’t been wrong since March 2000, when I took my entire savings out of Apple stock and invested it in Pets.com — the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, which conducted the research, has the situation exactly backward.

Facebook doesn’t cause drug abuse; drug abuse makes people turn to Facebook.


Here’s the evidence: People on drugs do things that are eerily similar to popular Facebook activities. Clearly, social networking just gives various tweakers, stoners and trippers a venue for their drug-fueled antics.

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