We've all been inundated lately with the news that America's teens are in terrible shape. Addicted to social media. Lonely. Depressed, anxious, and suicidal. Fragile.
But did you also know this?
Marijuana is still fairly widespread, but every other drug is down to practically nothing since 2000. Cocaine, heroin, meth, ecstasy, inhalants, sedatives—you name it and it's dropped off the map. Alcohol use is down by half and cigarette smoking is all but extinct (though vaping has replaced some of it).
Maybe the kids these days are in better shape than we give them credit for?
Social media is a kind of drug. Not as physically harmful, but just as harmful if not more so in every other way.
Right and I will add there’s far less hanging out in person and more virtual meetups. Kind of hard to pass the dutchie through the screen.
Yup. The kids these days are addicted to their phones. Drugs can't compete.
Teens have shifted from cigarettes to Zyn. The reports on fentanyl deaths has likely changed some behavior.
Of course, teen drug use is also a social activity, and teens don't get together very often anymore.
I've been saying that for years.
Kids these days seem way more emotionally mature and sensible than my cohort was (I left for college in '90), and I thought we were more together than the '60s kids.
The trick will be staying that way until the old, unbalanced freaks like us kick it. The olds seem deeply committed to inflicting their mental problems on everyone else at the moment.
Yup. “More emotionally mature and sensible”. My observation as well. It’s seeing themselves as actors in the world, that their actions affect and influence others. They can articulate this too, which I for sure couldn’t do at that age. I didn’t have the language for that. I more or less blundered through life, oblivious. It gives hope for our future.
Agreed. I am somewhat encouraged by what I am hearing from the 20-somethings. The pearl-clutchers act like our generations were Gods gift to the world.
I remember turning to my then teenage daughter and saying, "Your generation will have to fix all this."
Her response?
"I know"
+1
As an actual urban public high school teacher, it seems pretty plausible that easy access to pot has crowded out other drugs. On the other hand, it is pretty easy to pop a few edibles on the way to school and stay stoned all day, every day. I sometimes catch myself overthinking a kid's behavior when the most likely explanation is just being stoned all the time.
Maybe not
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/13/opinion/focusgroup-young-undecided-voters.html
Drinking parties ended when home monitoring cameras became cheap and local prosecutors started going after the parents who owned the properties where the drinking occurred.
They better be stone cold sober for the kind of world that is being left to them.
Based on what my kids tell me, no-one smokes anymore, but vaping is quite widespread. Perhaps this is too anecdotal, but my now-college age son told me a few years ago that he was hanging out with a group of friends when someone suggested heading to this one person's house because their parents were out of town and had a good liquor cabinet. My son then pointed out that at least 3 out of 4 of them were on psychiatric medications that were contraindicated for alcohol, at which point everyone nodded in agreement and ditched those particular party plans.
That's the kind of maturity and consideration that you might not see in previous generations!
That thing you're worried about (insert subject of Kevin Drum's post here)? It's not a big deal to Kevin Drum.
But he does at least cite data.
drum is worried about the Trump administration, he's worried about the future of the supreme Court, he's worried about climate change. the difference between those things and the things he's not worried about is, you know, facts.
More interesting is the depression the media feels with the declining job opportunities.