Teen friendships, networks, and substance use

Abstract

Abstract This chapter reviews research from the PROSPER (Promoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience) Peers project relating adolescent friendship networks to three forms of substance use: drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and using marijuana. The first topic is the role of substance use in the friendship selection and peer influence processes, in other words, how substance use shapes adolescent friendship networks and how social influence from friends contributes to change in behaviors. The next focus is the connection between substance use and the organization or structure of the friendship networks. Here, the examination is on whether adolescents who use different substances occupy different positions within the network and whether groups of students who use substances have different network structures. The final topic is change across adolescence in network processes related to substance use—similarity, choosing friends, and peer influence. For each topic, support is found for the premise that friendships and substance use are interconnected phenomena, highlighting the need for continuing to incorporate friendship network processes, position, and structure into the understanding of the etiology of substance use and efforts to prevent it.