Teenagers are surprisingly sober, reports the Monitoring the Future survey. Nicotine, alcohol and drug use went down "dramatically" during the pandemic for eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders, and it's holding steady at low levels, reports the federally funded survey.
Nearly 90 percent of eighth-graders, 80 percent of 10th-graders and 67 percent of 12th-graders said they did not use marijuana, alcohol or nicotine in the past month, and usage rates for illegal drugs other than marijuana are very low (6.5 percent for 12th-graders).
Forty-seven percent of students were male, 49 percent female, 1 percent "other" and 3 percent chose the "prefer not to answer" option.
Young people may be too sober, writes Kat Rosenfield in The Free Press. "Scratch the surface of Gen Z’s sobriety, and what you find isn’t wisdom so much as fear — of vulnerability, of failure, of being out of control."
This generation is "virtually allergic to risk, particularly when it comes to markers of autonomous adulthood like driving, working, or sex," she writes.
Zoomers aren't fun, Rosenfield writes. "After a highly regimented childhood, and an overscheduled adolescence, packed with résumé-building activities, this generation isn’t just more anxious and depressed than their predecessors; they’re so tightly wound and mistrustful of others that they would rather die than let their guard down."
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