Study: Binge Drinking College Students Happier Than Their Non-Binge Drinking Peers

[Dave_Berry]

Study will be presented at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

http://www.asanet.org/documents/pres...ws_Release.pdf

[maidenMom]

Interesting. Wonder which LAC they used - Williams?

[RacinReaver]

If I had spent my Thursday nights drinking instead of on 15 hour problem sets I'd probably have been happier too.

[Montegut]

^^^Seriously.

[vlines]

Happier is one thing, but how do they do in school and are they at higher risk of alcoholism later in life?

I also wonder what the definition of binge drinking is. Frequency? Amount? Duration? I may binge drink one a year, others binge drink once a day.

[suzy100]

From the article: Binge drinking is defined as consuming at least four drinks for women and five drinks for men in a single drinking session. Binge drinkers have this kind of drinking session at least once every 14 days on average. In this study, the average binge drinker drank 13.7 drinks per week, while the average non-binge drinker consumed 4.2 drinks
per week.

[vlines]

Thanks suzy, I scanned the article and did not see it.

[Montegut]

^^^So glad you brought up that point about alcoholism. A serious problem down here in the South, and while a good amount is started in high school, it is perpetuated through college. While it was definitely present while I was in college, it is so painful to see college students going through this as an adult, as I know too well what happens to these young people down the line. Been to too many funerals of people whose lives were cut short by alcohol in some form or another.

[vlines]

from my scan of the article, the study was completely tied to "happiness" at school. No long term effects or performance indicators.

[PinotNoir]

Yeah - basically it's saying that for college students in a demographic group that isn't the top dog on campus, they can feel happier in the short run if they self medicate through drinking.

[austinareadad]

I would not be surprised if those engaged in pursuits to maximize satisfaction in the short term do end up feeling more satisfied in the short term.

However, this study was not very convincing. Could there be other explanations? Could it be that those from the putative disfavored groups who did binge drink were the ones invited to more frat parties, which would suggest that maybe they were the more physically attractive or socially capable members of the disfavored groups and so they were generally happier for those reasons (generally more positive feedback from other people)? For so many studies in the social sciences, there are far too many interpretations that cannot be ruled out.

[mamabear1234]

Right! All of my kids know the phrase - correlation is not the same as causation.

[jonri]

I assume the LAC was Colgate since one of the authors teaches there. I can't imagine Williams giving a Colgate prof permission to study binge drinking at Williams.

This isn't about self-medicating. It's about engaging in the same activities as the "in crowd" in order to be more socially accepted..and apparently it works FOR THIS PURPOSE.

[Scienceguy1]

My question would be how successful are these binge drinkers later in life? And how does it stack up against the employment or salary of non-binge drinkers.

Lovely article

I would definitely be much happier if I werent studying 9 hrs a day.

[JeremyS]

I don't see how you can consider something binge drinking across the board. Consuming five drinks could be 5 beers or 5 shots of Seagrams. And for some people (typically heavier people), 5 beers won't even get them drunk.

I would consider binge drinking to be drinking with the sole intention of getting wasted.