Affluent, highly educated and tech-savvy young adults are more likely to engage in binge drinking than many of their peers who are older, poorer and less educated, a new study suggests.
A cluster identified as “Cyber Millennials” — well-educated, tech-savvy individuals aged 25 to 44 with a median income of more than $79,000 US — was most likely to binge drink, according to findings that will be published in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Dr. Robert Mann, senior scientist in public health and regulatory policy at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, said the findings could represent important research for people interested in preventing alcohol abuse.
“This study, I think, is the first that I’m aware of that is really using techniques from marketing research that … identify important and relatively homogenous subgroups of the population for marketing purposes. This could be a very, very promising strategy,” he said.
