Mothers Matter: Using Regression Tree Algorithms to Predict Adolescents’ Sharing of Drunk References on Social Media

Sebastian Kurten, David Winant and Kathleen Beullens
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Sebastian Kurten: Faculty of Social Sciences, Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
David Winant: Department of Electrical Engineering, Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing and Data Analytics (STADIUS), KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
Kathleen Beullens: Faculty of Social Sciences, Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: Exposure to online drinking on social media is associated with real-life alcohol consumption. Building on the Theory of planned behavior, the current study substantially adds to this line of research by identifying the predictors of sharing drunk references on social media. Based on a cross-sectional survey among 1639 adolescents with a mean age of 15 (59% female), this study compares and discusses multiple regression tree algorithms predicting the sharing of drunk references. More specifically, this paper compares the accuracy of classification and regression tree, bagging, random forest and extreme gradient boosting algorithms. The analysis indicates that four concepts are central to predicting adolescents’ sharing of drunk references: (1) exposure to them on social media; (2) the perceived injunctive norms of the mother towards alcohol consumption; (3) the perceived descriptive norms of best friends towards alcohol consumption; and (4) willingness to drink alcohol. The most accurate results were obtained using extreme gradient boosting. This study provides theoretical, practical, and methodological conclusions. It shows that maternal norms toward alcohol consumption are a central predictor for sharing drunk references. Therefore, future media literacy interventions should take an ecological perspective. In addition, this analysis indicates that regression trees are an advantageous method in youth research, combining accurate predictions with straightforward interpretations.

Keywords: machine learning; regression tree; CART; extreme gradient boosting; social media; adolescents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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