After all, drinking and drugging among the 12-to-17 crowd is strongly influenced by a variety of maladies that predate Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, including (in no particular order): Peer pressure, boredom, familial conflicts, history of family substance abuse, depression, experimentation, and good, old-fashioned parental neglect.

All of these social ills still exist, I suspect, even in a world where everyone has a smartphone (OK, maybe a feature phone, since we're talking about teens here).

The survey also points out that teens who are cyber-bullied are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. I don't doubt that, but it's probably also true that teens who are bullied offline are more likely to abuse these substances too.

Social networks may facilitate interaction among teens, but do they really encourage bad behavior? Or do they simply bring the trials and tribulations of teen life online?

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