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.
It’s not “can’t”, it’s “usually don’t want to as teenagers”. Teenagers are easily addicted, and everyone reacts to each drug differently. Sadly today’s teenagers generally play only hyper-casual video games because they played Angry Flappy Farmville Mafia Crush as toddlers before moving on to Raid: Gacha Impact of Clans.
There are gamers that play multiplayer but single player games aren’t the problem. The fact that people can’t afford to live in reality at age 35 because they don’t have 10 years of work experience because nobody was hiring when they had just earned their degree and their student debt was literally a hard ‘no’ to declaring bankruptcy? They lost work experience in their field during the prime of their career because of 2008, that’s irrepairable. People would rather buy a new car in Cyberpunk or a new house in The Sims because the real thing is unattainable to an entire generation. Generation Z has their life ahead of them. The real iGeneration doesn’t. We didn’t get the chance to prove ourselves until our bodies had wasted away and our experiences in the workplace were the same as they were fresh out of college.
That’s if you could afford college at all. Most of us, myself included, weren’t that fortunate. My younger brother went to college on BOTH of our college funds because I could not make use of mine.