Adolescence
The Perfect Storm: Twitter, Marijuana and the Teen Brain
Is your risk-prone teen being seduced by Twitter?
Posted April 23, 2015
Young Twitter users favor marijuana. Teen Twitter chatter about “pot” is high and influential for the developing teenage brain. The popularity of social networking sites allows an increasingly younger demographic to be intrigued by pot and attracted to the perceived benefits.
Exploring the “Pot” Twitterverse
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health that examined the way marijuana is represented in online communities. Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg, Ph.D co-authored “Twitter Chatter about Marijuana” and found that overwhelmingly, Twitter users support marijuana and a good portion of them are teenagers.
“Many people believe marijuana use is harmless, and social media conversations almost certainly drive some of those opinions, making the drug appear socially acceptable,” she said.
In a telling post (from the “Marijuana Posts” Twitter feed), one young twitter person writes: “Dear Classmate: Yes, I smoke weed. Yes, I’m high. Yes, I get A’s. Yes, It’s annoying when you act surprised that I get better grades than you.”
The “Twitter Chatter…” study analyzed all the pot-related Tweets during a one month period. In order to find the Tweets, researchers conducted computer searches for terms like “joint,” “blunt,” “weed,” “stoner” and “bong” and turned up some 7.6 million results: 77 percent of tweets were pro marijuana. And more than half came from those under 20 years of age—more females than males; many, African-American.
Another study, “Social Influence on Risk Perception During Adolescence,” reported in Psychological Science, assessed outside influence on teens’ risk taking decisions. The researchers found that the youngest adolescents, ages 12-14 were more strongly influenced to change their thinking by teens than by adults. Fifteen to 18-year-olds were about equally influenced by other teens and adults.
The Developing Brain
Dr. Frances Jensen, a neuroscientist and single mother of two boys who are now in their 20s, recently wrote The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, a book that explores the science of how the brain grows and develops. Jensen attempts to understand why teenagers can be particularly impulsive, moody and lack the skills for responsible decision-making.
According to Jensen, the insulation that allows for messages to be sent through your brain begins developing in the back of the head and moves toward the front. Brains don’t fully mature and complete this insulation process until a person is in his early 20s. Drug use during this time period can have an impact on the brain’s development, possibly to the point of lowering verbal IQ scores.
In terms of risk taking, “The younger people are when they begin using marijuana, the more likely they are to become dependent. A lot of young people will phase out of marijuana use as they get older, but unfortunately, we’re not good at predicting who those individuals are,” Cavazos-Rehg said.
Parents’ awareness of their teenagers’ social networking engagement and friendships, often referred to as Parent Knowledge, plays a key role as deterrent to teen marijuana use. A study in the Journal of Family Psychology, “Parental Knowledge of Adolescent Activities,” makes this clear: “Parents’ knowledge of their adolescents’ whereabouts and activities is a robust predictor of adolescent risk behavior, including the use of drugs and alcohol.”
How solid is your Parent Knowledge? Do you know what your teen “tweets”? Her friends and activities?
Related: Are ‘Bath Salts’ Just Hype?
Resources:
Cavazos-Rehg, P., Krauss, M., Fisher, S., Salyer, P., Grucza, R., & Bierut, L. (2015). “Twitter Chatter About Marijuana.” Journal of Adolescent Health, 139-145.
Jensen, Frances F. and Amy Ellis Nutt. The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. New York: Harper, January, 2015.
Jensen, F. (2015, January 28). “Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-Prone And Should Protect Their Brains.” National Public Radio.
Jones, Jason D.; Ehrlich, Katherine B.; Lejuez, C. W.; Cassidy, Jude. “Parental knowledge of adolescent activities: Links with parental attachment style and adolescent substance use.” Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 29(2), Apr 2015, 191-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000070
Knoll, L.J., L. Magis-Weinberg, M. Speekenbrink, S.-J. Blakemore. “Social Influence on Risk Perception During Adolescence.” Psychological Science, 2015; DOI: 10.1177/0956797615569578
· Follow Susan Newman on Twitter and Facebook
Copyright @2015, 2018 by Susan Newman
