This chart has been floating around, and I find it interesting to speculate about the reason for this shift.
Have attitudes changed this much? Do teens have less independence or fewer places to go to do these things? Are parents more involved in teens’ lives? Was vaping excluded in the study?
This is from 2015 showing rates of smoking in adults:
So I’m guessing there are lots of reasons we’re seeing similar patterns in high school seniors. The most obvious from the data above is that they’re mirroring the behavior of adults that are largely eschewing smoking. Smoking/drinking/drugs were or are also acts of rebellion and experimentation in the youth. I’m guessing those definitions are changing too. Rebellion may be taking on slightly different forms and much of the taboo of smoking/drinking/drugs is being removed if the adults around them are also using less or none at all.
Except a lot of these things don’t include vaping. That has skyrocketed in kids and iirc vaping rates are higher in kids than smoking rates were when I was in high school
I agree. I’m 41 and was a smoker for like 16 years starting in high school. I saw cool adults smoking as a kid and that’s that. I still vape some, but I strictly don’t do it in front of the kids in my life. I don’t want them to think it’s cool.
I think a growing number of high schoolers are just not going out as much. They’re at home socializing on discord. I don’t think there is a rise of “straight-edge” as much as just fewer organic opportunities for a larger swathe of young adults.
So the percentage of highschool seniors lying about drinking and smoking is on the increase. But seriously, I’ll bet the rise in social media addiction might have something to do with that trend. You can’t really trust self reporting stats tho.
My first inclination is always to be suspicious of self-report too, but presumably any biases would also be present in the older data. If anything, I’d guess kids 50 years ago might have felt more social pressure to not admit to alcohol/substance use.
Edit: to your point, I bet you’re right about social media addiction. If most kids are just going home and spending time online, they’re probably not doing these things as much. I bet it’s also the root cause to those studies showing that young people are having less and less sex.
Guessing that “smoking cigarettes” doesn’t include vaping. But, it’s definitely true that cigarettes are seen as a lot less cool nowadays. I am surprised there aren’t more kinds drinking regularly… I think here in the UK the picture would be different, parents are a lot less bothered about drinking here in my experience.
Zyn is growing quick in popularity. Them and other nicotine pouches very well may be taking some of the market.
The kids are gonna be alright 👍
The less people smoke and drink the better our society will be, that’s a fact. Remember, smokers are jokers
The further away we get from that awkward leaded gasoline period, the better too.
I remember the Skull and Copenhagen girls giving out free samples to the 4-H & FFA kids at the county fair… Thats how I got my addiction…
Gonna call bullshit, only 1 in 20 high school seniors were straight edge in the early 80s?
*haven’t drunk
