Social Norms Theory Analysis

Parents can teach their children how to drink responsibly. Normalizing alcohol consumption as something done responsibly in moderation will make drinking alcohol less of a taboo for young adults entering college. By lowering the drinking age, adults could openly model responsible drinking in establishments and at parties and irresponsible behavior would be discouraged. If the risks of alcohol were advertised more, it would remind people to drink responsibly.

This essay serves a convincing and powerful tone about how “colleges have a serious problem with alcohol abuse among students, and it is not getting any better” (336). It mentions how colleges are oblivious to this issue, and the problem will be solved over time, which is not true because evidence shows that students have carried their drinking issues throughout their lives. This essay lists steps about how this problem can be prevented in college campuses, and it does include statistics, but it relies on persuasive strategies to convince the audience that steps need to be taken to reduce the large amount of binge drinking in colleges, especially with students underage. The essay also uses convincing statements such as “Colleges cannot claim to create a supportive learning environment where they support such behavior” (338) and includes repetition of words like “must” to show that action needs to be done about this problem that continues to happen every year. Therefore, to prevent this conflict, the essay offers a solution of recommending a weekend tour so students can see the shame on students’ face after a night of drinking, and colleges also need to acknowledge the dangers of alcohol consumption.

As a country, we need to redefine the culture surrounding alcohol so that we can create a society which breeds knowledge and understanding about alcohol. People are going to drink and get drunk no matter what the legal age is. Our only hope as a society is to address what it means to us to have “socially responsible drinking.” The next task is to figure out how to teach it. By generating informed citizens and exposing them to this knowledge at an early age, we can aim to demystify the term “drinking responsibly.”

Results show that lowering the drinking age has negative impacts on society. One example of a negative effect is binge drinking and unwanted pregnancies. In addition to the negative effect of binge drinking, another negative effect is the number of accidents caused by underage drinkers. As well as binge drinking and the number of accidents cause being negative effects on society, teaching students how to be safe while drinking sounds great, but what are the chances that students will actually

Most people would probably associate college age men and women with drinking alcohol in excessive amounts. This is a typical stereotype of college students. It seems that a lot of college students just assume the responsibility of drinking because they are college students. This seems to be the norm. Thomas Vander Ven, in his book Getting Wasted, studied college students on three different campuses in order to decipher the mystery behind the reason college students tend to drink (Vander Ven 2011).

Over the past few decades, there has been much discourse regarding the drinking habits and behavior of college students. Since the passage of the Uniform Drinking Age Act of 1984, federal regulators have determined that the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) should be 21 years old instead of 18. Since then, there have been a plethora of scientific studies to determine whether this was an effective means of combating irresponsible drinking habits. The aim of these studies was to determine the overall impact of the reduced drinking age in a ‘cause and effect’ way. However, the primary means of support for the MLDA being 21 was that drinking and driving as well as overall consumption among minors was reduced.

Over the years, there has been the question of should the drinking age be lowered back down to 18 because of adulthood and being able to join the military. On the other hand, binge drinking in the United States has led to many serious health, education concerns and fatalities. “In 2015, the Monitoring the Future Survey reported that 10% of 8th graders and 35% of 12th graders drank alcohol during the past 30 days, and 5% of 8th graders and 17% of 12th graders binge drank during the past 2 weeks (cdc.gov)”. This means that even at the legal drinking age there are middle school and high school students drinking. Results show that underage people cannot handle alcohol.

“Drinking Like a Guy: Frequent Binge Drinking Among Undergraduate Women” by Amy M. Young, Michele Morales, Sean Esteban McCabe, Carol J. Boyd, and Hannah D’Arcy Summary The article of interest is “Drinking Like a Guy: Frequent Binge Drinking Among Undergraduate Women” by Amy M. Young and colleagues. The author was primary interested in examining why there has been an increase in frequent binge drinking among the most recent generation of female undergraduate students. Specifically the author examined whether female undergraduate women associated being able to “drink like a guy” (meaning consuming large amounts of alcohol, drinking competitively) with fender equality.

They 're surrounded by this culture, and everyday are impacted by it, through their students. Ruth C. Engs, a professor at Indiana University, says that in controlled environments with a lower drinking age, teens will begin to learn responsible and sensible drinking habits. Without re-learning their pressure drinking habits, teens start to hide their drinking. This causes problems, especially when tough situations arrive. Teens aren 't able to explain their situation

Within residence halls, RA’s often put on programing that educates about drinking. It seems that many of the the campaigns are focused on alcohol addiction, not on binge consumption. This issue is relevant to the client because college aged students often die from alcohol related injuries, binge drinking makes this more likely to happen.

Alcohol abuse and alcoholism seems like an issue that keeps getting increasingly worse each year in the United States. According to USA Today and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both say that approximately 6 people die from alcohol poisoning, caused from binge drinking, each day, which amounts to roughly 2,200 people each year. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says that “In 2013 an estimated 697,000 adolescents ages 12–17 (2.8 percent of this age group) had an [alcohol use disorder]” (“Alcohol Facts”). Something has to stop and something has to change from preventing this more because 6 people dying each day from binge drinking alone is a lot, not to mention that 12-17 year olds are having alcohol problems at such a young age. Lowering the drinking age will enforce this act even more, promoting more drinking in fact.

It is evident that media convinces audiences that there is a correct viewpoint of different ideas and it can be difficult for viewers to look past social constructions of the media. Therefore, just because most television shows portray teenagers and college students rapidly consuming alcohol and being intoxicated, it does not mean that that is “normal”. The media is extremely powerful, but it ultimately comes down to a view to create personal beliefs and values. So, when people begin to abuse alcohol, the media makes it seem as if a person’s actions are normal, which makes the issue at hand

Social norms are rules and behaviors that are considered acceptable in a group or society. I do believe social norms are a huge factor of consuming alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. If you think about it the people consuming either alcohol, tobacco, or drugs because there friends do so they want to try it out. They are consuming it because they are trying to fit in with there friends. College campuses are targeted everyday by alcohol industries.

Name: Eric Hamilton Article citation: Song, Eun-Young, et al. " Selected Community Characteristics and Underage Drinking. " Substance use & misuse 44.2 (2009): 179-94. ProQuest. Web.

The #1 health problem associated with college campuses is student drinking (Champion, Lewis, & Myers, 2015). According to the U. S Department of Health and Human Services, there was a “call to action to prevent and reduce underage drinking, with an emphasis on college campuses (As cited in Champion et al., 2015)”. According to Wechsler and Nelson, of the students attending 4 year universities, 44% of them are partaking in binge drinking which they defined as 4 or more drinks for females and 5 or more drinks for male (As cited in Champion et al., 2015). After almost 20 years there is still no resolution to this problem.