
Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking? - endswapper
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/parenting/ct-teens-not-drinking-20170919-story.html
======
pixl97
There are a pile of different answers to these questions (not question), ones
that should be asked separately.

For example, excluding factors that affect all the questions, putting off
drinking is _likely_ a combination of consumer education and the difficulty in
getting alcohol pre-21. Fewer adults want to provide their younger peers
alcohol because of legal risks.

Driving is the combination of increasing expense to drive a car you own,
mandatory insurance, services like uber, and the need not to travel that
modern technology presents.

Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education. Higher pregnancy
rates are seen in populations with no or bad sexual education. Also, you are
'held to the fire' by the state if you get someone pregnant.

But some of the largest ones are teens aren't getting out in the workforce at
younger ages. This means less money to spend on sex, drugs, and rock and roll,
along with different social implications for the people you do meet.

~~~
vowelless
My prior is like yours: There are likely different answers to the various
points listed above.

Regarding this one:

> Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education. Higher pregnancy
> rates are seen in populations with no or bad sexual education. Also, you are
> 'held to the fire' by the state if you get someone pregnant.

It's possible that the easy availability of porn has a lot more to do with
this than just fear of pregnancy, which is probably why this is seen across
the board (urban, rural, ethnicities, etc) and despite apps like Tinder.

~~~
ams6110
Porn was readily available on the magazine racks at gas stations and less-
than-family-oriented bookstores back in the day. Easy enough to get if you
wanted it.

~~~
Retra
No, that is not 'easy enough'. Many people would find that an insurmountable
barrier, actually. (I certainly have no desire to walk up to a stranger in
public and ask for the means of sexual gratification in exchange for money.)

------
enord
Teens are living in an isolated socitety from us that can seem like a strange
stasi-germany enforced through guilt. Expectations are set for them to perform
in measures that are unrelated to personal growth and developement, and from a
young age. Different parties observe them and intervene on almost any
deviation from expectation. The path is narrowing.

Underperform on a standardized school test, intervention. Spend too much time
alone, intervention. Spend too much time online, intervention, admonishment.
Test social boundaries and get in a fight, intervention, involve police. Can't
spend all day in a poorly ventilated room, learning topics you never chose at
a pace you can't control, without acting out; now you have to take pills. Skip
class to try cigarettes, intervention and maybe CPS. Have you applied for
college yet? You know you can't get a job without a degree. Apply yourself.
Why are you falling behind? Apply yourself harder. Feel bad. You don't want to
be flipping burgers do you? 4 more years without responsibilities, you'll
remember them fondly.

Unless you excel academically or possibly athletically you are given nothing
to be proud of. Anything else is a concession given in pity and children are
made to know it. We make them feel bad for everything they don't master, but
we make them keep doing it and we push them along so they're always behind.
The only way to get off the merry-go-round is to drop out and flip burgers,
but lately that has become a failure. A failure of talent, ambition, skill and
- worst of all - character. It's no wonder that tey are risk-averse.

~~~
brad0
I enjoyed reading this.

Have you experienced this directly or noticed this as a third party?

~~~
enord
Some of it are my own frustrations from first or second hand experience. I'm
just young enough that I was a teenager during the later years of the
statistic (allthough I probably weighed against the trend except for the
driving part). Yet I've had time to teach since I came of age, and talk to
people.

Most of it though is just empathic (pathetic maybe?) outrage towards what I
perceive-- no, feel is a steady devaluation of diversity in people, children
in particular. Diversity of experience, of interest, of priorities and values.
Diversity of stories.

The collective narrative we impose on children is that we're going to give
them this great education, they're gonna have such great opportunities ('yuuge
opportunities), and we're gonna make extra double sure that that it's the
greatest education bestowed on any generation. We'll know it's the greatest
education because we're going to test them relentlessly. And they will be
grateful. They had better be grateful, and make something from this invaluable
opportunity.

I'm exaggerating (and sprinkled a little Trump in there) to make it more
obviously self-serving, because we are not helping them grow, were growing
them. And we're weeding the meadow of anyone and anything that doesn't fit the
mold. And I need to get off my soapbox, because I'm rambling.

~~~
brad0
Have you read Paul Graham's essay on schools?
[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

I think you'll find it interesting. Email me at bcurran421@gmail.com if you
want to continue the convo

------
Jill_the_Pill
They're not smoking either. Those things are no longer cool badges of
maturity, independence, or rebellion. Instead, they're getting piercings and
tattoos, identifying as alternative genders, sexting, and claiming more
flexible sexual orientations. Alarms the old folks just as effectively.

~~~
labster
Kids these days, now we can't even store sex in a bool. And they want another
float for gender! Back in my day we had one bit for each, and we liked it.

~~~
andai
Wasn't it one for _both_ , or is that too far back?

~~~
labster
Probably too far back. We had the Kinsey scale in 1948, so that's a 0-7 for
gender/sexual identity, and one bit for sex. Fits perfectly in a nibble.

------
hashmap
Reduced exposure to lead probably has something to do with it.

[http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/08/childhood-
lead...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/08/childhood-lead-
exposure-causes-lot-more-just-rise-violent-crime/)

"This means that lead exposure is likely to be associated not just with
violent crime, but with juvenile misbehavior, drug use, teen pregnancy, and
other risky behaviors."

~~~
simplexion
Wow... that would have to be almost as good correlation as vaccines cause
autism. I have a feeling it is more likely due to easier access to knowledge.

~~~
astura
Except it's well known that lead exposure during childhood can cause
irreversible brain damage.

~~~
lawlessone
Probably a correlation of lead exposure to anti-vaccines views then. I noticed
it's mostly a slightly older generation to my own that are anti-vaccine.

People even older than that remember what its like to not have them.

------
redleggedfrog
Good parenting? As a parent, I was proud that my sons waited to date, took
public transportation or rode their bikes, don't drink cause they're not 21
yet, and decided to have sex at the perfectly reasonable age of 19.

I did like how the end of the article mentioned how scary the world is today.
They should try living through the Cold War, and the time of Crips and Bloods,
and gas lines, and the housing crash. _Now_ those were scary.

~~~
arkh
> don't drink cause they're not 21 yet

That's how you get drunk people once they're free to buy alcohol. Parents
should help their children discover alcohol safely at home so it is not some
mystical drink you can't wait to get your hands on. A glass of good wine here
and there during family reunions, one or two beers with the barbecue, maybe
some whiskey and vodka to learn what the good stuff tastes like. Suddenly it
becomes "this drink with a special taste which gives you a light buzz".

~~~
terminalcommand
I think alcohol consumption is tied with the social circle of teenagers. I was
a shy, silent pupil at high school, but I knew how to play guitar. So I joined
a band, and instantly started going out once a week to drink. None of us were
old enough to drink, but we managed to find bars which allowed us a few
drinks.

For the dating part, I think this is tied up with the insecurity of kids
nowadays. There is a lot of competition, the TV/internet is bombarding us with
beauty ideals and perfect relationships. It is easy to give up and convince
yourself that you'll be "forever alone". There are even communities online,
where kids with no relationships hang out. And the longer they wait, the
harder it gets for them to start a relationship.

IMHO the kids need to find a way to bite the bullet and be social.

------
spectrum1234
I thought the article was great and am surprised by the comments here.

This theory is obviously true and quite fascinating: According to an
evolutionary psychology theory that a person's "life strategy" slows down or
speeds up depending on his or her surroundings, exposure to a "harsh and
unpredictable" environment leads to faster development, while a more resource-
rich and secure environment has the opposite effect, the study said.

For those who say this is no different than other generations you are wrong
because of one variable: Work. Many middle class kids use to have to work and
now they don't. This is HUGE and effects EVERYTHING.

~~~
pjc50
Can we distinguish between "have to work" versus "can't find work" at this
distance?

~~~
thatfunkymunki
Agree 100%. I graduated high school a little while ago (2008) but was
absolutely unable to find anywhere that would hire me as a high school
student, even though I would have loved to have a job and have some spending
money of my own.

------
vparikh
Because todays kids are coddled and have a 'safety net' of being able to stay
home and not join 'adulthood'. I mean when I was a teen ager - my parents
couldn't afford to support me. I had no way of staying home and riding it out.

If I wanted anything in my late teens (car, fuel, guitar, computer, books,
money for dates - etc.) I had to come up with the money for it - my parents
provided shelter, food, clothing and a safe environment to sleep in.
Everything else, it was unsaid fact I was going to have to provide myself.

This allowed us to be a lot more free - we knew at worst we would be like our
parents. Make ends meet and eck out a basic living. It wasn't too bad as
everyone else was the same. So knowing that doing nothing - would result in
being where we were - the only way out was to do something. Take a risk, go
out and see what the world offers.

Today, I see plenty of kids having iPods, Mac Book pros, flashy clothes and
driving cars all provided by their parents. Why work hard? Why take chances?
Life isn't that bad after all.

The starting point is so much more comfortable for all of these kids.

~~~
SandersAK
Every 10 years someone posts this. The message it sends is this "I don't
actually take time to understand the unique situation of being a kid in
today's economy and culture. I do not acknowledge that the experience is
rapidly changing. I am uncomfortable with this new world and would rather put
the blame on kids being 'coddled' without any data to suggest this than
confront my own lack of understanding."

~~~
eighthnate
Every previous generation thinks the current generation is coddled. When I was
a kid, I had to walk through 10 miles of snow to get to school. "Snow day"?
Schools are creating sissies I tell ya.

~~~
secfirstmd
Back in my day, my Mum used to listen to the internet on our house phone!

~~~
MarkPNeyer
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo)

------
Animats
"Teens spend a 'mind-boggling' 9 hours a day using media, report says."[1]
That cuts into driving, dating, and drinking. Kids just aren't leaving the
house as much, for any reason. They don't need to.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/03/health/teens-tweens-media-
scre...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/03/health/teens-tweens-media-screen-use-
report/index.html)

------
Uhhrrr
No one mentions video games? It seems like they really cut into both the
desire and the time to do those things.

~~~
analog31
Likewise homework. Anecdote: My kids have vastly more homework than I ever
had.

~~~
ams6110
Mine seem to have far less.

------
Chiba-City
Driving and drinking in common forms are wastes of time or dangerous. Commutes
specifically are now the #6 cause of full blown clinical depression. The
easiest form of "helicopter parenting" was turning off TV's. Now YouTube lets
parents turn of ads. Novelty status seeking, post-war PTSD and novel TV 1-way
broadcast made drinking or driving seem attractive. I know parents who forbid
gaming, TV fictions and even cheap factory franchise food wholesale. Their
kids have time to do everything else live and in person. Not dating is a
demographic phenomenon. I was born in '66 and none of us feared incurable
diseases. The divorce rates are so high and peer-available literacy and even
maximum attention spans so low many kids have no interest in family formation.
Demographer predict 25% of unmarried Americans will never even marry. During
WW2 26% of Italian women were nuns. Global TFR's are falling and Japan has
been depopulating faster than their deflation for net wins. Japan and Britain
are net importers of water (via foodstuffs). The instincts for not breeding
are smart. Various Amish populations have been booming. People seeking larger
families should consider organic farming careers.

------
tanilama
And what is wrong with that? Is this another blame piece article that teens or
young people in general are less masculine and animalistic, and not as
ambitious as their parental generations and need to toughen up?

So fed up with this narrative, like they know what is good for the teens, what
they experienced when they were young should be shrined as norm while the
young people are the ones that screwed up by turning it down. No. The teens
and young people are living in a world, the adults CREATED, and if someone to
be blamed, it should be the adults. However that should not be the point, the
world had moved on, people are living in very different time and space now,
they ought to have different ways to live it, it is the adults like the
author, who can't really take the fact, and blindly shouting the remains of
good days.

~~~
Apocryphon
That sort of "the kids aren't alright" sentiment of this piece is especially
rich:

 _" On the one hand, I know she's safe, she's not out getting pregnant or
smoking pot or drinking or doing all kinds of risky stuff that I can imagine
would be age appropriate,"she said. But Haskew wonders whether her daughter is
missing out on life lessons those behaviors can teach. "Is that stuff
necessary for human development, do you have to be risk-taking as a teenager
in order to succeed as an adult?"_

So these articles and parents, after years if not decades of after school
specials and anti-drug classroom crusades and rubber playgrounds and
helicopter parenting and initiatives to make everything about childhood as
safe and as convenient as possible, are now suddenly _regretting_ their kids
not experiencing teen pregnancies or youth drug abuse? After making the world
a safer place- and a more scary place through relentless hysteria and moral
panics- they now think their kids are too soft and coddled? Sponsor scouting
organizations or summer camps or apprenticeship programs or study abroad if
you think your kids aren't experiencing the real world enough. Don't
romanticize the same risky behaviors that you lobbied to abolish in the first
place.

------
goodroot
It's disturbing that, at least in Chicago, there appears to systemic
conditioning that's convinced people sex is dangerous and scary.

> Among teenagers now, "there is a feeling you're getting of, 'Wow, the world
> is pretty serious, so why would I rush to immerse myself. . .Why don't I
> stay with my friends and away from anything that has heavy consequences,
> like pregnancy or sexually-transmitted diseases?'"

Sex is joyful. If you have sex safely, there is a very low risk of
consequences, let alone heavy or lasting ones. I felt that interconnectivity
and 'bar-lowering' by applications like Tinder would increase the level of
frivolous sexual activity, not decrease it. My inner hedonism-bot is
disappointed.

~~~
chewz
I disagree.

Sex puts you through a lot of suffering (disappointment, self-doubt,
rejection, bad life decisions etc.) and simply is a great waste of resources
(time, money, energy etc.) and in modern times even more so cause it isn't
usually leading to procreation or long-term bonding.

Yes sex is nice but it has a heavy price.

~~~
stouset
> disappointment, self-doubt, rejection, bad life decisions etc.

Absolutely none of these are necessarily a consequence of sex, given a healthy
and productive attitude toward physicality and interpersonal relationships.

I am genuinely sympathetic that you seem to associate these feelings with
sexual relationships.

~~~
chewz
I appreciate the sympathy however (I hope) I can enjoy sex as much as anyone
else.

My point is rather that describing sex as only joyful (also in a context of
modern teenagers) is quite shallow.

You can look no further but to a few pop songs, watch a random movie or read
some good poetry to learn that sex as a driving force is leading to confusion,
suffering etc. It is also a force beyond our control on some level and as such
could lead to serious life consequences - you can make some dumb life decision
driven by sex.

Also historically and in many different cultures sex is seen rather as
confusing force. People had been choosing lifetime celibacy, chastity etc. for
a reason.

------
spodek
I wonder what it's like to grow up in a world you know was trashed -- likely
to have more plastic in the ocean than fish, wars over resources, hundreds of
millions of people displaced from their homes, population decreases, etc...
all consequences of past generations' carelessness.

Maybe not all those things will happen, but some will.

That has to factor into your world view and behavior.

~~~
guyt00
The world is more prosperous and peaceful now than any time in human history.
To be born now in a developed country (of which there are far more of than
even ten or twenty years ago) is an incredible advantage compared to what the
vast majority of humans ever experienced.

~~~
andai
I heard an interview with Warren Buffet yesterday where he said that the
average person today has a better life than J.D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), who
was in his time the richest man in the world.

He also says that "the luckiest person in the world is the baby born today in
this country [USA]."

He's a tremendously optimistic fellow, still working as far as I can tell, and
reading 5-6 hours a day at age 87. Highly recommend his interviews on talks.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
What is considered "better" varies from person to person. I know personally,
I'm deeply worried about whether or not my children will have a better life
than me. I don't know of anyone my age(23) that actually has any close
friends. The companies I work for don't even pretend to be loyal to me or
anyone else at my income bracket. An unexpected illness could bankrupt me and
my wife. Testosterone levels for men are significantly lower now than then,
which sure affects a man's quality of life.

People today may have more things, and may be more healthy, but that doesn't
mean their quality of life is greater unless they're part of the upper
middle/upper class, and even then, it's often very stressful.

------
grogenaut
Anecdotal but my son is afraid he'll hurt someone while he learns to drive.
He's pretty empathetic. That and he doesn't have that much need to leave the
house since he can talk to most of his friends more easily on the nets.

------
joezydeco
My cousin's son explained to me that they avoid risky behaviors because
there's always someone with a smartphone ready to broadcast them on social
media.

And they're highly aware that there's no erasing it once it's out.

------
eric_h
Slightly offtopic but that website jumped to 4.5GB of RAM by the time i was on
the third paragraph (Safari on macOS). Perfectly legible (and memory friendly)
in lynx, though!

~~~
rconti
Yup, one of the few sites that really gave my 6 year old macbook air troubles.
Adblock counter was running up like crazy.

------
to_bpr
When one adds these markers of significantly decreased development or
preparedness for adulthood with the increase in social isolation being
reported, the levels of psychiatric issues such as ADHD and depression being
observed, the relentless rate of youth suicides, the obesity epidemic and
more... at what point can it be deemed a crisis?

~~~
heurist
Took how many years for opioids to be considered a crisis? And that had
immediately demonstrable, measurable impacts on society. America has a lot of
resistance to improvement when it requires giving up any kind of freedom.

------
smashingfiasco
Oh god, not Jean Twenge.

People, please, please read the Strauss and Howe book (Generations), not Jean
Twenge. She makes overly-cranky observations about generations (especially
younger ones, like Millennials and Homelanders) without the context of the
rest of generational theory. The things I have read from her before seem to
show a very basic understanding of the topic of generations compared to others
who came before her.

I mean, Strauss and Howe wrote about (predicted, you might say) that the youth
would clean itself up as this current cycle progressed by way of exacting
Boomer expectations (in hypocritical contrast of the Boomer's own behavior
during the late 60's and 70's). To anyone who has read the book, this is news
article is probably coming as no surprise.

------
basicplus2
"Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious"

Perhaps Not drinking and having less sex could be rebelling against your
parents who drink too much and screw around... i am being Half serious

------
amelius
The reason could be supernormal stimuli. If you can get a very good dopamine
fix from video games, online pr0n and social apps, suddenly the real world
isn't all that interesting anymore.

These kids are basically addicts. And addicts are generally known to _not_
behave as responsible adults. So that would explain why these kids don't "grow
up".

~~~
UK-AL
The "Adults" are addicts to. They just relied on different things. Like
alcohol instead.

------
tunesmith
In 1976, a great many seniors in high school could drink alcohol _legally_.
Doesn't really detract from the article's point, but that bugged me.

------
Jill_the_Pill
Maybe the anomaly was the phase in the US when they did do these things so
young?

~~~
protomyth
If you look at history, the anomaly is today. As one example, not working some
job during your teenage years is a recent phenomena (at least the last 20
years maybe 30 years).

------
plandis
> "I haven't heard of anyone who goes out and specifically drinks with their
> friends," he said. "It's not something you set out to do, like, 'Oh yeah,
> I'm going to go out and get drunk.'"

I think it's fascinating that the teenager interviewed equated drinking with
binge drinking.

~~~
Zircom
What about that quote implies binge drinking? As far as I'm aware you can get
drunk without "binging", and teenagers don't drink alcohol because they like
good whiskey or appreciate fine wines, they drink to get drunk.

------
reader5000
Internet and digital stimulation has displaced 'real life'.

~~~
protomyth
It will be interesting to see what VR does for this. I am kinda excited about
AR because you need some reality to make it work, and Pokemon Go was probably
a net positive. VR probably will win though for a net negative.

------
pacaro
I can't help wondering if teens working less is because so many of the jobs
traditionally held by high school kids are now critical income for low income
adults. As others have observed, not working has a knock on effect on other
activities

------
Apocryphon
_But America is shifting more toward the slower model, and the change is
apparent across the socioeconomic spectrum, Twenge said. "Even in families
whose parents didn't have a college education...families are smaller, and the
idea that children need to be carefully nurtured has really sunk in."_

One wonders if there are extant societies that are worth comparing. Maybe
American family structures are becoming more like those in East Asian or
Western/Northern European societies. The greater emphasis on education for
credentialism, leading to longer hours spent on schoolwork or college-app
burnishing extracurriculars, sounds like it.

Of course, the study claims the opposite ("noting that teens today spend fewer
hours on homework and the same amount of time on extracurriculars as they did
in the 1990s"), which seems at odds with the popular perception of high
schoolers being slammed with AP courses.

------
gadders
I have friends in my age group (mid-40s) that have never learnt to drive
because "They don't need a car because they live in London."

I don't live in the sea but I learnt to swim. Driving is a useful skill to
have.

------
santaclaus
I'd be curious to hear how this trend compares across countries. Are teens in,
say, England drinking less and having less sex than their American
counterparts, or this an entirely American phenomenon?

~~~
aedron
Here in Scandinavia kids are definitely a lot more sheltered today than 30
years ago. We used to roam the streets in our free time when I was a kid,
being out all day (without even mobile phones). I don't know of any parents
today that would allow this.

Drinking and smoking doesn't seem to have changed much though, only following
the general trends of way less smoking and a little bit of stigma associated
with alcohol. Actually weed might have become more common today than back
then, cocaine definitely so, come to think of it.

As far as sex is concerned, things are a bit less 'liberal' these days for
lack of a better word, again following the general societal trend. The free-
wheeling spirit of the 70s and 80s died down gradually, with AIDS and probably
other factors.

------
c517402
This generation was raised eating and drinking from plastic and has a higher
level of BPA in their blood than any previous generation. But, maybe that is
just a non-causal correlation.

~~~
basicplus2
..and the number of pirates..

------
whipoodle
All of those things cost money.

------
perpetualcrayon
When I was growing up, generally speaking, the total # of people you ever came
into contact with were the people you physically came in contact with.

With the internet, social media, etc. today's kids, socially, are probably
equipped with the tools (if used properly) to become my generation's
equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

------
albertTJames
So is it because the word is more treacherous or because the world is safer ?
The logic is really poor, the author gives the impression he knows why the
phenomenon is happening, but he keeps changing his arguments.

------
jsemrau
My take on it is the absence of role-models.

In the 60's LSD and the Stones, the Doors, the Hippies

In the 70's Hash and David Bowie, Disco, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Pink FLoyd

In the 80's it was Coke and New Wave, Duran Duran, Punk

In the 90's it was Alcohol and Metal, Ecstasy and Raves, Madonna's
experimental phase encouraging women to test their limits.

In the 00's there was Marilyn Manson, Nu Metal? But it's already getting
fuzzy.

What it is now ? Where are the big stars, i.e. drivers of youth culture. It's
the Justin Bieber's and Taylor Swifts 'of this world that have a major impact
on youth culture right now.

~~~
tehwebguy
Listen to any pop or hip hop station. Here's Mask Off (Future ft Drake) -
peaked at 5 on Billboard Hot 100 this summer. The hook is mostly this:

"percocet, molly percocet"

Then check out dubstep and EDM subculture. There is probably a massive rave
event happening every weekend in the states. Molly is a massive component of
these events.

~~~
santaclaus
> There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the
> states.

How much of that is the teens described in this article? The subjects of the
article seem to be mostly post-millennial (current high schoolers) who enjoy
hanging at home with their parents. The average age of a massive rave goer
probably skews a bit more towards the college and early 20s age bracket.

~~~
tehwebguy
Yeah true. I think the long tail filled in the gaps left by iconic artists wrt
millenials.

Smaller bands & artists, vloggers and streamers. For this unaware, check out
how dedicated fans of a 500k subscriber YouTube vlog channel are.

------
laretluval
I suspect we're going in the direction of Japan, where half the population
under 30 has never had sex and doesn't plan to.

------
Multicomp
I'm sorry, just downvote me but "I'm scare to be an adult because climate
change"? Really??

------
leke
Yeah, the internet will do that to you.

------
lawlessone
I put off driving until i had money. Pretty simple.

------
ohdrat
'Cuz they'd have to move out.

