2 College Truths and 1 Lie

Overview

This pilot randomized control trial (RCT) aims to assess the feasibility and efficacy of 2 College Truths \& 1 Lie (2T1L), a gamified social norms marketing campaign (SNMC) aimed at preventing and reducing first-year college student drinking. This program is designed to correct overestimations of peers' alcohol use behaviors, which, as shown in previous research, influence one's own future drinking behaviors. To examine the efficacy of 2T1L, this pilot trial will use a longitudinal design to determine whether playing 2T1L during the first few weeks of college will prevent increases in drinking or reduce subsequent alcohol use among first-year students during the same year, relative to exposure to a static social media-delivered SNMC or an assessment-only control condition. The investigators hypothesize that students randomized to receive the interactive 2T1L SNMC game will report less state psychological reactance in response to normative campus drinking statistics than students randomized to the non-gamified SNMC condition. Further, students in the 2T1L game condition will report greater accuracy in their perceptions of campus drinking norms and consume less alcohol following the six-week SNMC (short-term follow-up) and toward the end of the first year (long-term follow-up) compared to those randomized to both the active non-gamified SNMC and assessment-only control conditions.

A pilot RCT will be conducted to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed gamified normative re-education campaign, 2 College Truths \& 1 Lie (2T1L), which will be embedded on the most popular social media platforms associated with high-risk drinking during the first year of college. Incoming first-year students will be invited to participate in an online survey during the month prior to the start of the fall semester to determine baseline drinking norms and alcohol use. An automated randomizer will be programmed into the online survey to non-visibly assign participants to the intervention (n=138), active control (n=138), or assessment-only control (n=138) group. On the first day of the second week of classes, ads promoting participation in the gamified and static versions of 2T1L will begin to appear in the Instagram accounts of participants randomized to the intervention and active control conditions, respectively. These ads will continue to run over the course of the first six weeks, with a new ad promoting the current round of play every two weeks. Approximately one month following the conclusion of the final round of play, participants in all three conditions will be invited to complete the first follow-up survey (short-term intervention effects), which will include the same measures of drinking norms and alcohol use assessed at baseline. Six months post-intervention, participants will be invited to complete a second follow-up survey to assess the long-term effects of the intervention. At both the 1-month and 6-month follow-ups, the investigators expect that participants randomized to the intervention group will report greater accuracy in their perceptions of campus drinking norms and consume less alcohol relative to those randomized to both the active non-gamified SNMC and assessment-only control conditions.