Scholars have indicated that social media contribute to various health-related behaviors (e.g., substance use, body dissatisfaction) among adolescents. This study adds to the literature on health-related social media effects through theoretical advances supported by empirical evidence. First, we introduce the TAMT model, in which we assess the media environment along a continuum of two dimensions: the temporality (from ephemeral to persistent) and accessibility (from private to public) of message types. By combining these dimensions, we argue that there are four message types: ephemeral private, persistent private, ephemeral public, and persistent public. Second, we draw on the TAMT model to advance our knowledge of the role of social media in alcohol-related behaviors. We expected that, due to the distinctive characteristics of the four message types, they would be differently related to alcohol references and binge drinking. Based on cross-sectional data (N = 1,636, Mage = 15, SD = 1.17), we found that moderate alcohol references are encountered across all message types, while more extreme references are more likely to be prevalent in ephemeral public and ephemeral private messages. We show that exposure to moderate and extreme alcohol use references in ephemeral private and persistent private messages was associated with a higher probability of engaging in binge drinking, whereas exposure to ephemeral public and persistent public messages was not. Ephemeral private messages played the most crucial role in the association with binge drinking. These findings illustrate the importance of broadening the scope of research to ephemeral private environments when studying health-related behaviors. While we have illustrated the usefulness of the TAMT model against the background of two specific types of alcohol references, this new model can be extended to other behaviors (e.g., sexual risk-taking behaviors, cyberbullying).

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With alcohol experiences increasingly shared on social media, this study investigated the construction and understanding of gender norms in alcohol posts: (a) whether stereotypical gender norms prevail across different platforms and message types (b) among adolescents. Focus group interviews with 47 adolescents (Mage = 16.21; SD = 1.22) indicated that social media are important outlets for reproducing stereotypical norms. While sharing alcohol depictions was deemed to be stereotypically female, there were gender differences in the acceptability of sharing certain types of alcohol depictions. As opposed to girls, it was more appropriate for males to depict extreme, negative alcohol behaviors. While girls acknowledged that ephemeral environments enabled them to feel comfortable sharing extreme alcohol behaviors, they carefully negotiated these references by limiting the number of these posts, highlighting female traits in them, and restricting this content to close friends only. Thus, alcohol-related social media posts are more stereotypical than actual drinking experiences, even in more deliberating message types including ephemeral ones.