Social media platforms that enable users to create and share online content with others are used increasingly in social research. This article explores the complex ethical issues associated with using social media for data collection, drawing on a study of the alcohol consumption practices of young people. It aims to contribute to debates about the practical and ethical challenges facing researchers using social media as a data collection tool, and to demonstrate how a reflexive approach to the research and the context in which the research takes place is critically important for supporting and enabling an ethical approach. The article concludes by recommending that researchers who face ethical dilemmas associated with the use of social media maintain an ongoing dialogue with their relevant ethics committees and other researchers to identify potential solutions and to share their findings.

Developing a deep and contextualised understanding of risk is important for public health responses to young people's alcohol consumption, which is frequently positioned as an outcome of risky behaviour. This paper expands conceptualisations of risk to encompass its wider social and cultural context through a social practice exploration of young people's controlled and managed intoxicated alcohol consumption practice. We report data from a fourteen-month qualitative study of the alcohol consumption practices of 23 young people in England, drawing on group interviews and social media interactions. Our findings provide a nuanced understanding of risk-taking, demonstrating that risk is an important aspect of the ongoing participation and performance in alcohol consumption practice and that health information and advice can be and was frequently incorporated into drinking practice without contributing to fundamental change. This raises new questions about the effectiveness of health interventions that focus on the individual, discussed in the final section of the paper.

Research suggests that there is no safe amount of alcohol but despite this alcohol consumption remains an important part of many [young] people's lives. Viewed as an inherently social activity, drinking alcohol provides an opportunity for socialising and connecting with friends. This study is one of the first to draw on practice theory to explore one type of intoxicated drinking occasion engaged in by young people; framed in this article as a ‘proper night out’. This article argues that this hybrid entity is made up of a series of interconnected social practices that have come and now hang together to serve to normalise and routinise intoxicated drinking occasions. The operationalisation of practice theory has enabled an in‐depth exploration of intoxicated drinking and provides the potential for new ways of intervening in harmful drinking practices by refocusing attention away from individual level decision‐making to drinking practices.

Drawing on the three-element model of social practice theory and key conceptualisations relating to gender performance, this article reports on an empirical study of the intersecting practices of drinking alcohol and doing gender. We present data from a 14-month research project to explore the online and offline intoxicated drinking practices of 23 young people in England framed as a ‘proper night out’. The data were analysed with a focus on three elements (the ‘corporeal’, ‘alcohol’, and ‘caring’), and the findings demonstrate how young people collectively practice gender through their intoxicated drinking practices. This operationalisation of practice theory highlights the potential value that a practice theory lens has for exploring gendered social practices and broadening understandings of notions of acceptable and suitable practice performance.

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