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Harold Sowards
IST 120
13 February 2014
The Spread of Sleep Influences Drug Use in Adolescent Social Networks
This paper addresses the question of whether sleep behaviors in teens can cause lead to
drug usage and then if the results could spread amongst their peers. The hypothesis of this study
is that yes, sleep behaviors do affect a person’s drug usage and then can spread to their friends.
The authors want to show how sleep behavior and marijuana usage spreads through social
networks and to suggest that their behavior affects their friends.
The three authors involved, Sara Mednick, Nicholas Christakis, and James Fowler have
all gotten their PhDs. Sara has previously worked on research regarding workplace and sleep
results. Nicholas has done a lot of studies revolving around social networks on behavior, health
and longevity. James had done a wide arrange of studies revolving around: social networks,
behavioral science, evolution, politics, genetics and big data. I consider them all to be very
credible as they are highly qualified to do research in this subject matter. However, they were
mainly employed by the University of San Diego California and the research was funded by the
NMH, NIA, Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National
Institute of Child Health and Development, so the whole research is basically going to agree with
the values of health and how to make a better society.
The main conclusion in this essay states that teens that are central in the social network
are very influential and have become vulnerable to bad health choices. They suggest that drug
treatments should affect one person and that person will be more influential to the rest of the
group while sleep differences should also be applied in the same sense. The evidence they use to
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support this conclusion would be present in Figure 1 as it shows how one person in the center is
usually sleepless and uses more marijuana. Also Table 2 shows how peoples associated to be the
vocal point of their social networks increase their friends’ drug usage by 42%. Table 3 shows
how sleep behaviors spread amongst friends. Any friend who sleeps poorly will increase drug
usage by the same amount. Figure 4 shows all the results and the main findings put together.
These conclusions are important, because it could be the new way to help combat the rising drug
issue in teens .
However, the sample size isn’t consistent, because in the abstract of the paper it talks
about how 8,349 teens were used in the study but later in the body of the work, it says that
90,118 teens from 142 schools in the grades 7-12 were used. The conducted this study three
times (1994, 1996, and 2001). However, I’m not sure why the sample was that large because
you could do the same survey with a few schools. Also, there needs to be more studies done to
focus on other drugs and not just marijuana, because there is a huge increase in overall illegal
drug use and they could be another factor in the decision making processes done by the teens.
Their methods are a little bit complicated to follow as the sample size varies depending
on which part you use, the estimates are also very random and there is a few limits involved, plus
with the changing in culture from 2010 to now, it might be difficult to reproduce the same results
as their study. They limit Figure 1 by getting rid of sibling ties also since Figure 4 was supposed
to show colored arrows and the copy I was given was in black and white, I had trouble following
the flow. The authors propose that teens should be on a systematic daytime sleep regimen.
However, I personally don’t think their results are right. I have an issue believing that
poor preschool sleep habits affect a person’s usage to use drugs 10 years later (pg.1). Also, I’m
not sure why the first two waves for the sample was so close together (1994-1996) while the last
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wave was in 2001, that’s a five year gap to cover and people’s situations can change during that
time frame. In their findings (pg. 2) they mention how 56 and 62% of their study sleep more
than 7 hours and 85 and 87 % don’t use drugs, so why they focus on the 38 and 44 % who don’t
sleep that long and the 13 and 15% who use drugs, is a question I want answered. Also, the issue
comes to the degrees of how this sleep is spread, the numbers are too low (5-29%) to show
anything of importance when the paper is trying to make the argument of how big the central
figure can spread its influence.
Also, the drug usage shown in Figure 2, isn’t as much of a change after degree 1, but then
again most of the people in degree 1 are close friends and people tend to associate with those like
them, so when I see 38% and 11% changes after that, I’m not convinced with their findings. In
table 2, they focus on friends change of opinions and usage, when a friend doesn’t use drugs, it
only makes a 10% change, why? I’m pretty sure the kids who use drugs don’t commonly
associate with those who don’t, so the 10% change, could be a result of not many of their friends
believe that way.
With all these issues aside, the paper does have some valid points that make it worthwhile
to benefit the health of our country starting with the change in teens. However, I think the results
are biased and are proposed to support one side and the evidence contradicts itself at too many
points for me to believe in them.
