Summary
Teen drug, alcohol, and tobacco use in the U.S. continues to decline, with record-low usage levels reported in 2023, according to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey.
Among 12th graders, 66% reported no recent use of alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, while 80% of 10th graders and 90% of 8th graders avoided these substances entirely.
Experts attribute the decline partly to reduced peer pressure during the pandemic.
However, nicotine pouch use has doubled among 12th graders, raising concerns.
Despite pop culture’s glamorization of smoking, teen cigarette use remains low.
Pop culture’s glamorization of smoking? What year is it, 1990?
Nah they just broke. The system is not better it’s worse.
Nah, here’s the real reason. When I was the nightclubbing age, you could get a bottle of booze, 6 cans of coke and mineral water for like $50. Last time I went to a club, I paid $120 for the same thing. People in the 18-25 age range don’t have $120 to drop every Friday.
You also have to give credit to youngins these days that they are smart enough to spend money by going to gym and choosing to live a healthier lifestyle instead. This is according to many news report.
And also, I think the rise of social media is to be credited as well because instead of going out to socialise, the younger generation are socialising digitally. Of course social media has its drawbacks, which is getting highlighted more in recent years for understandable reasons, but it also has an upside and really it offers many alternatives that traditions couldn’t. I know us older folks begrudge social media, but hey, it’s here to stay. For better or worse.
It’s probably my choice of gym but I see almost no young people in it. It’s mostly 30-somethings that figured out that eating garbage all the time and staying thin stops at 30. Yes, that includes me.
Worth noting that school age kids have a vastly different free times than most of us. I often see the same group you’re talking about at the gym, but if I show up right after 5 I see a bunch of high schoolers. They must like to go just after school.
That makes a lot sense and I didn’t even thought of that.
Could have fooled me by the way they vote.
Those damned 8th graders, throwing our elections!
I quit smoking a long time ago after many attempts. The key was to simply get poor enough that I simply couldn’t afford it. Perhaps that’s what we’re seeing here.
I don’t have any friend to get high with :((
I might just be lucky, but I’ve had great success in getting in random friend groups while playing games where you can build things and explore.
Valheim, space engineers, minecraft, terraria. Stuff like that.
I think maybe it has to do with people logging into the dedicated server and seeing the stuff you build and they think of you. Plus lots of those servers will have a discord and that’s basically getting into a ton of people’s DMs. You can post in the discord music you like, funny dumb pictures and memes. Stuff that really shows what you’re interested in. This way people can see if they’re into the same stuff as you. Then you can branch out to other games or even meet ups IRL.
Whenever I see one of these polls being published I imagine how I would have answered them when I was that age, and I would have lied about every negative seeming question.
What if the poll wasn’t really anonymous and this data was going to be passed on to future employers or schools?
Interesting idea but they are comparing different year surveys with the same age children.
Do you think that kids are more prone to lying now, than earlier years?
I’d wager that teenagers these day are much more aware of data collection and more protective of personal information then they were 10-20 years ago. I could be giving them too much credit, though.
Possibly? Could correspond with increased digital surveillance. Most people understand that nothing is private anymore.
Not only that but back then you didn’t have to worry about it with a simple rule:
They ask you a question, do they know your name or who you are? No? It’s anonymous.
Now you don’t have that anymore. Anything can be linked backed to you cause there is always a digital finger print.
Even if you ask random people on the street, there is facial recognition and cameras everywhere.
I’ll offer this as a possible reason: Kids don’t solo travel like they used to. Kids not wanting driver’s licenses as much is a thing.
I think I can speak for older generations a little - we couldn’t wait to get enough independence to have a bike or driver’s license to get out of the house. There was only the telephone to talk to people - as in no internet, no social media, not everyone had computer games or consoles. Eventually you had messaging services like AIM or IRC, but you didn’t really meet up with friends on them because not everyone had PCs, or cared to learn how to use one. There was cable TV if you were lucky, but you didn’t watch that all day. We went from one friend’s house to another, or friends of friend’s homes. You got exposed to a lot more living conditions, often while completely unsupervised. Bored kids or kids with home problems didn’t mind pilfering the alcohol from the parents, or got whatever drug they could. Usually pot. Nothing else to do. Plus some peer pressure.
Now? Kids text. They meet up online on discord or whatever VoIP or messaging service is cool right now. Group chats. Play online games. They don’t need to leave the house to hang out, and in-person hangouts seem way less important to my kids than it ever was to me when I was younger. That’s a lot less opportunity to be introduced to alcohol or other drugs and have the access to them.
So maybe less peer pressure isn’t necessarily a Covid result, it’s the result of social interaction moving to online spaces and not physical spaces where access to alcohol or other drugs are present.
This is a big part of it for sure. I have a 21 year old nephew who refuses to get his license. He just says yeah I’ve got lots of friends that drive me where I need to go. It’s not always going to be like that, kid.
I got my learner’s permit the day I turned 15 and my license the day I turned 16. Couldn’t wait to get away from my family.
People are also more poor in general.
Wages have been stagnating for over 50 years.
Independence requires financial independence.
It’s not possible to meaningfully participate in society without disposable income.
This leads to the avg person having less power and influence than almost any of their ancestors.
Unfortunately nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Video games are fundamentally experiences of agency, of being in some kind of environment that is dynamic, spontaneous and in conversation with the player.
Modern life on the other hand is fundamentally the experience of having no agency and being in a car choked landscape where nothing is dynamic, spontaneous or in conversation with you (especially as pedestrian when not driving).
I am goind to spend time where I have agency, where the landscape was designed in joyous anticipation of someone like me existing in it, the real life human spaces around me have been exhaustively rectified to the brutality and logic of latestage capitalism and thus these “real” landscapes around me are dead.
Society seems to every day increasingly hate and punish people who want to explore, play and create. Why the fuck would I want to spend time in real life spaces when they were designed out of a specific hatred for the kind of thing that makes me feel happy, alive and welcome?
Playing video games is something I do because I am poor AND because I gravitate towards landscapes and communities that were designed by people who don’t hate my brain and the way I think and live.
I can barely afford to drink in my basement!
I mean if you didn’t had disposable income, drugs were the last of your worries in that scenario
you’d wish, but the thing with drugs is “you” (the drugs in you) wanna continue even in poverty and homelessness
But what if our teenagers all grow up to be lame?
The coolness gap is real.
Seriously, my teenage niece is a complete square, but still looks up to me as her cool uncle, so I encourage her straight laced nerdiness.
Hopefully she doesn’t burn out in her 20s and make a series of painful but cool mistakes like I did.
This is why it’s important for teenagers to make their coolest mistakes early on in life while there are fewer consequences.
This is why I’m so annoyed at college “police services” and serious crackdowns on protests. WTF, college, this is not what I pay you for. I pay you to be a sandbox where little Johnny can grow and develop and find his voice. Yes, also suffer consequences for his mistakes, but non-serious consequences. Your job is to better prepare him for life, not ruin his life.
My own effing Alma mater glorified building takeovers from the 1960s, talking about the good changes that eventually developed, but then they changed from being a “security” force trying to protect the kids to a “police” force so they can carry guns and arrest kids. Then during the BLM demonstrations they started arresting kids and kicking them out. WTF.
Seriously. The rule should be, “occupy whatever the hell you want. Just don’t create a fire hazard or prevent people from doing their job.” Want to sit-in on the hallway outside the university president’s office? Fine. Just keep the number small enough to not be a fire hazard. Feel free to shout whatever you want at them while they walk to their door. Don’t do anything stupid like chaining yourself to the university president, and you’ll be fine.
Yeah, it would be a bit annoying to be that president and to have to walk past protesters during terms. But so what? You signed up to be the president of the university, the human face of the campus administration. You’re the highest paid person on campus, behind only the football coach. Don’t want to deal with blue haired teenagers shouting at you? Don’t sign up to be a university president!
Maybe smartphones and social media are a problem here. Running around buttnaked with penises drawn to you face isn’t that fun anymore, if everyone can take a picture/video that might haunt you for decades. It’s self-surveillance.
The one thing I wish europeans would mimic from the USA.
Hopefully they’re just smoking weed instead of drugs
Their tick talking and vaping
Of course better education and all that stuff becoming super expensive makes it much less desirable.
On the one hand, cigarettes are bad and everyone should quit. And alcohol should be used in moderation. And many drugs are very dangerous and addictive and should be avoided. So this is probably good.
On the other hand, if this means are just sitting home alone, maybe having parasocial relationships with influencers, that’s sad.
Teenagers going out to party - bad
Teenagers sitting at home - also bad.
What the hell are kids supposed to do? Just not exist from the period where we stop finding them cute till adulthood?
I got my vasectomy, did you?
Going out to party isn’t bad. Sitting at home using drugs and alcohol compulsively because you are addicted is bad. It’s a fine line to walk but lots of people do it. I did every drug under the sun as a youth and turned out fine, and this applies to pretty much my entire university cohort. Not a single one of them ended up as a junkie.
Should we encourage kids to drink and do drugs? I don’t know tbh. That experience was genuinely positive for me because it gets me out there in the world, made me friends and memories and taught me lessons about moderation. From my point of view the people who ended up getting the shit end of the stick were the handful of people I know who got addicted to WoW and online gambling, not the one who did drugs on occasion. But apparently those things are becoming common and culturally acceptable while partying isn’t. Take that as you will.
For my kid who is very athletic, I always phrased it as “don’t destroy your cardio by inhaling any ashes or burning stuff”
But he is so strait laced and so careful with his health that it’s not really an issue.
My other kid is a different story. Luckily he doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes or pot smoke, but I found out his vice when he offered me a gummy. First: cool, second: shit, I was supposed to yell at you
You can go out to party without doing heroin.
I’m already so sleepy, I don’t need to feel even sleepier.
Sure if you want to be lame
Not born.
Already being worked on. Fertility rates are below replacement rate and keep dropping.
Well…yeah. Have you SEEN this world??? I don’t want to bring new kids into this awful planet. Do YOU???
Sports, Music, Hobbies like board games, Outdoor activities like camping and hiking.
There is plenty of fulfilling things to do together that dont involve alcohol or other drugs or “partying” in the sense of loud music, bad hookups and regrettable videos the next day.
Why assume people can’t socialize in person without the use of drugs?
Why do you single out alcohol as “should be used in moderation”? It’s literally a hard drug and way worse than cigarettes.
Does “hard drug” have an agreed upon definition?
I’m pretty sure cigarettes are worse. Much more addictive, harmful to the user and nearby people, and the cigarette butts I think are an environmental hazard.
Alcohol use is as old as human civilization. I don’t think light usage is that hazardous.
TLDR: Alcohol is a psychoactive, addictive carcinogen that will give you cancer no matter the consumption (though of course the more you drink the worse it becomes). It’ll also fuck up your liver, but that’s not mentioned in this article as it focuses on cancer.
That aside, where did you get that cigarettes are more addictive than alcohol? Only one of these will literally kill you if you quit cold turkey unprepared and it’s not cigarettes.
Most people I’ve known who smoke are addicted. They get moody and other withdrawal symptoms. No one I know has a similar relationship with alcohol. This is not a scientific study, but that’s been my experience. I know there are alcoholics in the world.
Also nicotine and cigarettes are known to be addictive https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/tobacco-nicotine-e-cigarettes/nicotine-addictive
I’m pretty sure “stopping drinking cold turkey will kill you” is kind of hyperbolic. Most people aren’t drinking that heavily. This thread started on the point of moderate drinking.
I acknowledge that even light drinking is unsafe. I wasn’t aware it that plausibly that hazardous. Unfortunately, many things are unsafe and I don’t think alcohol is going away any time soon. Going out for a drink with friends, there’s probably a bunch of hazards there. Unhealthy foods, car exhaust, staying up late.
They get moody and other withdrawal symptoms.
Fair enough, but that’s mostly phycological addiction, which is a whole different beast. Nicotine addiction on its own is pretty easy to get over afaik.
Unfortunately, many things are unsafe and I don’t think alcohol is going away any time soon.
True enough, but it’s important to make it clear it’s not good for you even in light doses so people can make an informed decision.
They don’t want to admit that its because legal recreational pot usage is on the rise as a safer alternative to nicotine and alcohol
Who’s “they”? This is a university study, not one sponsored by Budweiser/Marlboro.
Also, they didn’t bother separating based on legality, but did research marijuana use and no, it’s not on the rise:
The results show that a whopping 66% of 12th graders reported no use of alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. This is the highest abstinence rate recorded since the survey began tracking it in 2017.
Also surprising is that marijuana usage among teens is declining – despite a notable upward trend for adults across the US.
“They” are the 12th graders interviewed by the university study
