March 11, 2009 | Mad Science

It’s often said that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Well, the same thing can be said about junk science and in particular, this study, which is a treasure to dump on.

Widely reported everywhere, in a revelation so stunning it’ll reverse daylight savings time, researchers concluded that if you give people (especially predominantly self-admitted booze-hounds) free booze and show them a booze-themed film, well, they tend to drink. This comes hot on the heels of unreleased data from The Shark Guys Institute that shows that when having people over for a barbecue, people get hungrier if they’re watching the Food Network than if you favor them with your Botswana elephant hunting expedition slide shows.

We were especially interested in this Dutch alcohol and TV study after covering some Loud Music in Bars Linked to Heavy Drinking ‘research’ last year. After pouring over the results of that particular gem, we concluded that clipping out grocery store coupons also constituted ‘research’.

We decided to part company with our fellow journalists (which wasn’t too hard as they’re still at the bar) and actually read the study ourselves to see if it would shine a light on the boob tube’s influence on getting blotto.

The Dutch research team (the Washington Generals of crappy science) distributed flyers on campus that would not be dissimilar to ones that would advertise a better than average house party: come on over, free booze!

Not surprisingly, they were able to a round up a group of scholars, who showed up quicker than first responders to a 3-alarm blaze. These lucky 40 were then each asked to call up a buddy, who showed up quicker than they did.

They were then divided into 4 groups, (80 people total, 20 per group, for those of you keeping score at home) who watched films in a lab home cinema setting, where they had ad libitum (fancy Latin for all you can drink) access to a refrigerator containing both wine and beer and non-alcoholic beverages—the latter still cooling in that fridge as we write this. Snacks were available, and the students were allowed to smoke (Actually paying these folks for their participation at this point seems redundant).

During the showing, researchers took audio and visual recordings of the  groups, chronicling the subjects’ inability to believe their good fortune and the much clinking of their glasses.

These entirely un-randomly selected, free booze aficionados, were divided into four groups, as mentioned:

• The first group watched the booze-addled film American Pie II and saw commercials advertising alcohol.
• A second group watched American Pie II, but no alcohol ads (no word whether the denouement of the first Pie was explained so they could follow along)
• The third saw the considerably less boozy 40 Days and 40 Nights and saw booze ads and
• Group 4, watched that same concussion-forgettable Josh Hartnett vehicle, this time with no booze ads.

The crew commissioned to partake in this study, when it came to indulging could probably out-drink the French Foreign Legion: 36.3% were twice weekly bingers and 17.5% more than twice a week. The average weekly consumption was 21.05 glasses of alcohol!

In one hour, those who watched American Pie II plus alcohol ads drank nearly three bottles of alcohol, compared to 1.5 for those who watched 40 Days and 40 nights and no ads [luckily the period of study was one hour, or else participants might've nodded off from boredom].

Conclusion (theirs) : The portrayal of alcohol and drinking characters in movies directly leads to more alcohol consumption in young adult male viewers when alcohol is available within the situation.

Shark Guys Conclusions:

• People have fun when they are given a chance to bring a friend along to a happy hour research study, i.e., no long term inferences can be made from one hour in a weird lab setting where eggheads are filming you get drunk with your bud
• Putting together a bunch of hard drinking college students from the same school, and of similar ages, in a room with free drinks—leads to drinking.
• A movie about abstaining from sex is not likely to encourage ‘let’s get wasted’ camaraderie, but folks still drank
• People who on average drink 21 glasses of alcohol per week, drink when it’s free and when it isn’t.
• This is no way represents any kind of situation that might be found outside the lab such as drinking alone when a) it’s not free and b) you’re not surrounded by your larrikin buddies, and c) given a relaxing environment with free snacks and a chance to smoke. That is to say, many different factors influence whether someone drinks, very few of which were examined in this lame study
• The method of allocating the participants to the four exposure groups was not truly randomized
• Only guys were involved, all predominantly boozing college students…and only a scant 20 of ‘em allocated per group.
• The experiment should be repeated (and we’d be willing to volunteer our services) with individuals rather than wastrels and their drinking buddies and with women instead of/or in addition to, men.
• Mediocre mainstream comedies lead people to drink.
• Advertising works! (note to advertisers,  we are currently seeking banner ads for this site: starting price $10,000)