Not everyone is doing it

By REBECCA SMITH

A funny thing seems to happen when we are surveyed about the behaviors of other people. In research about multiple topics, people often think others behave worse than they do.

So much for having faith in humanity!

This phenomenon is true about underage drinking. I give dozens of presentations a year to students and adults as part of my work with the Northeast Texas Coalition Against Substance Abuse. I often ask them to raise their hands and guess what the percentage is of students who drink.

They almost always guess the percentage is higher than it actually is.

In 2014, only 36 percent of high school seniors in this region said they had a drink in the last 30 days, according to the Texas School Survey administered by researchers at Texas A&M University (“The region” refers to Health Region 4, which covers 23 counties up to the Arkansas and Louisiana border down to Cherokee County and Henderson County to the west). And even smaller percentages of the younger students drink.

While only 36 percent of seniors said they had a drink in the last 30 days, students I’ve talked to sometimes guess as many as 60, 70 or 80 percent had.

Where does this huge misperception come from? It could be that teens in movies are often portrayed as drinking, or ever-present alcohol advertising. According to research from the Rand Corporation, a non-partisan research firm, kids age 11 to 14 can see as many as three alcohol advertisements in a day. This unspoken implication that most teens drink can make it more likely that a teen will think drinking underage is not a big deal or that they should drink to fit in.

Whatever the cause of the misperception, it’s important that we point out that most teens aren’t drinking, and that we celebrate that.

When teens know that most of their peers aren’t drinking, they are less likely to give in to pressure to drink or think they need to drink to fit in.

So why do we work in the community to try to prevent the 36 percent of high school seniors who are drinking? Unfortunately, 5,000 people under the age of 21 are killed every year in alcohol-related accidents. More teens are killed by alcohol use than by all the other illicit drugs combined. And teens who start drinking before age 15 are seven times more likely to have an alcohol problem.

However, when the consequences are all we talk about, we may be contributing to the misconception that “everyone is doing it.”

It’s important to talk to children and teens about the dangers of underage drinking, but let’s remember to also tell them that most kids don’t.