Comment by cj
5 days ago
"Make the drug less good" likely isn't the answer. Nor is banning it.
What caused Gen Z to drink less than millenials? Maybe Gen Z has the answer.
5 days ago
"Make the drug less good" likely isn't the answer. Nor is banning it.
What caused Gen Z to drink less than millenials? Maybe Gen Z has the answer.
You're only allowed to drink as an adult. We're talking about letting those companies rot our brains in those first 18 years.
In my experience the 60+ demographic have had far more damage done.
We just haven't seen what 60 year old ipad kids look like yet. It's not going to be pretty
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Just as they were settling into middle age far-right propaganda, conspiracy, and hate "entertainment" escaped AM radio and flooded cable news and social media.
They never stood a chance.
yeah, it's called "smoking weed".
Technology, culture, legalization of pot, adtech, covid, there are a metric ton of factors that all had significant impact on both decreasing socialization and reduction in drinking. And lowering the birth rates, and the number of healthy relationships, healthy friendships, etc.
I'm for legalizing all drugs, regulating the sale, ensuring quality and purity, and educating the public. Cognitive liberty is sacred - but the dip in drinking has a whole lot of causes.
A healthier society would be more social and get out and drink more, I think.
Millennials love their weed, party drugs too, it took over Gen X drinking in some way.
But I find Zoomers to be rather tame in terms of drinking, smoking, drugs, unsafe sex, etc... Few of the traditional vices, really.
Inflation, mostly. And a lot of us lack social skills so they don't have many friends, thus no reason to go out and get drunk.
But like, when a pint is $12 and mixed drinks are $15+ sobriety starts looking more appealing.
Source: Am gen Z.
Decades of science communication and real life examples of knowing (of) alcohol addicts
I'd wager how expensive it has gotten plus a year or two of lockdowns which lead to a whole generation of people not going out to get wasted as soon as they're legally allowed to had way more effect.
Oh, and weed being increasingly legal to consume.
I also noticed a trend that happened at my old college and a number of others that I've never seen anyone write about: the great buyout of the old college area slumlords.
All the dive bars where you could black out off $10-20 I drunk at in college are gone. They all faced the wrecking ball, and were replaced in the past 10-15 years with apartments over targets and cvs and family friendly restaurants. A huge concerted effort to buy up these properties in piecemeal then destroy entire blocks at a time. I have no clue where kids at my college go to drink now. I have little interest in going back either as an alumnus as they destroyed all the places of my memories.
Real life experience with alcoholics would at-best be constant over time, or be diminishing (since gen Z drinks less).
Also seems like the science on whether science communication actual changes behavior doesn't point towards it being much of a cause here.
> What caused Gen Z to drink less than millenials?
Social media addiction?
As one of said generation, I would chalk it up to instant communication creating innumerable shallow remote relationships that significantly replace time spent with others in person.
Gen Z drinks less because alcohol isn’t enough of a fix and hard drugs are way cheaper. The answer isn’t what you’re looking for.
> What caused Gen Z to drink less than millenials?
Money.
Make it legal and expensive?
Gen Z never touch grass, you need to first leave the house before drinking comes up.