Nagging young adults about excessive drinking might actually work—that is if the nagging is done via text messages.

A study backed by the Emergency Medicine Foundation and a distillers' industry group called the Century Council found that text messages sent to binge drinkers resulted in lower amounts of alcohol consumption, according to a news release from the EMF.

Depending on the amount of drinking reported by a participant in the study and how he or she responded to the texts, the follow-up messages variously expressed concern, offered encouragement to set goals to reduce drinking and provided positive reinforcement and strategies for cutting down. After three months, participants who received the text-message interventions had 3.4 fewer heavy drinking days in the preceding month and 2.1 fewer drinks per drinking day, according to the EMF. The others, meanwhile, increased the amount they drank alcohol.

“Because we used an automated computer system, our intervention has the ability to provide text messaging-based feedback and support at large scale with minimal cost,” Dr. Brian Suffoletto, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and leader of the study, said in the release.

Parental nagging, which usually is provided for free, was not a part of the study.