Today's teens are a more sober, less social generation
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Teens today are drinking less than their parents did — but the trends that may be supercharging their sobriety aren't all positive.
The big picture: Researchers say there isn't one definitive reason for the shift. Some hypothesize it isn't solely a health kick, but that some teenagers have no one to say "cheers" with.
- The generation whose childhood was warped by a pandemic and the exponential acceleration in tech and social media is, perhaps unsurprisingly, isolated.
- "The way that we socialize post-COVID is just really different," says Rachel Janfaza, a Gen Z researcher and author of "The Up and Up" newsletter. Coupled with social media, "those two forces ... have created a perfect storm for a change in how we hang out."
By the numbers: The long-standing decline in teen drinking began in the late '90s, according to the Monitoring the Future study, a University of Michigan project that has tracked young people's substance use for half a century.
- The trend has only accelerated.
- According to the study, the share of students who drank in the past 12 months in 2025 was 41% in 12th graders (compared to 75% in 1997), 24% in 10th grade (compared to 65% in 1997), and just 11% in 8th grade (compared to 46% in 1997).
Worth noting: "All drug use, including alcohol use, is very social," MTF principal investigator Richard Miech tells Axios.
- Lifetime abstention from select substances, including alcohol, climbed to historic high levels among 8th and 10th graders, and near the historic high for 12th graders, in 2025.
- "There's a growing percentage that aren't using anything," he says. "It's not like all the kids are being steered to some other substance."
- As the author Derek Thompson noted earlier this week, it matches a broader social anti-substances trend.
Janfaza highlights three reasons she thinks young people are giving booze the boot:
- A social shift: The pandemic's impact on social life for kids and teens, who have experienced a stubborn surge in loneliness, and a shift where hangouts mostly happen online.
- Body optimization and looksmaxxing culture: Health and body image pressures are hitting both young women and men, in particular through the GLP-1 craze and so-called "looksmaxxing" and skinny culture. Plus wearable tech that tracks your sleep, steps and other biometrics ramps up the wellness worry.
- Economic pressure: For Gen Z, affordability strain has also collided with romance, with one study finding roughly half of men (53%) and women (54%) spend $0 a month on dates.
Context: Gen Z is a generation of "late bloomers," says Janfaza: "It's not just that they're drinking less, they're having less sex, they're getting their licenses later."
- Since even before the pandemic, she says, young adults have told her "our generation's freedom, flexibility, childhood has felt a bit more rigid."
The bottom line: Parents can help alleviate some of their teens' stressors (without encouraging them to drink, of course), Janfaza says.
- They must grasp "how it might mentally affect their children to live in a world where it feels like someone is always watching, and they're constantly meant to be turning out a version of themselves that is the best online presence possible," she says.
- Also, parents: Encourage those face-to-face hangs (sans booze).
Go deeper: A record share of Americans are giving booze the boot
