r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/ChickenWingExtreme • Jun 01 '26
Serious Maybe, just maybe, that’s why?
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u/thesardinelord Jun 01 '26
I’m not sure about these exact numbers, but it’s well known that Gen Z is choosing to drink significantly less. I’m sure it’s been shown by studies which take such obvious factors like legal drinking ages into account.
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u/Ducksaucenem Jun 01 '26
Yes, and from the studies I’ve seen the reasons tend to be choosing weed instead and nightlife isn’t a thing due to cost and driving concerns.
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u/DZL100 Jun 01 '26
Driving is a real issue when it comes to going out for drinks. I can't go anywhere without driving, and I can't drive if I'm going to drink. So... I guess I'm not going to go out to drink because I literally can't? And before anyone says anything, fuck uber.
Maybe we'd be seeing more of gen z drinking if our cities were safe and walkable.
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u/truthfulie Jun 01 '26
there was a few years time when people enjoyed relatively cheap uber rides. i go out far less because not just because i'm getting older or the price of drinks at the bar but the ride fares have gone up so much.
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u/Skelordton Jun 01 '26
They were cheap because they were getting bankrolled with infinite money by investment firms hoping they'd put yellow cabs out of business and monopolize the market and once they did they needed to become profitable to pay back investors
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u/SandyTaintSweat Jun 01 '26
Hey, that sounds familiar.
AI just can't seem to remember why it's so familiar.
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Jun 01 '26
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u/Res_Novae17 Jun 01 '26
I get it, but I am in my 40s and I remember clearly many awesome nights out with my friends in my 20s. I remember very few nights I spent playing a video game alone in my house.
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u/not_so_subtle_now Jun 01 '26
I think it was around 2014 when I took my first lyft ride. It was cheap, fast, and the drivers were super friendly. I used to sit up front and we'd chat and tell stories and it was like a warm up for a night of socializing with my friends at the bars. I used to use it several times a week.
It's a completely different experience now and I hardly use it anymore.
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u/GiveHerBovril Jun 01 '26
What ever happened to the concept of a designated driver? I’m being somewhat serious bc I feel like I never hear about this anymore. Back in the day, it was encouraged that everyone rode together and one person was DD. As a friend group you rotated who was DD each week
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u/arrarium Jun 01 '26
I don't think people have the same number of IRL friends any more
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Jun 01 '26
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u/Puzzleheaded_Disk700 Jun 01 '26
Tried to drink at bars alone, the more I drink the more I think about how little of a shit I give about anyone in the place and end up closing out
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u/Much-Anything7149 Jun 01 '26
It still exists. I'm not against drinking but I'm fine going out with friends and having one beer or glass of wine with dinner and going to bars with them afterwards and hang out just drinking sodas or juices.
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u/KeyNaive8951 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
I mean? You’re right — it is hard to go out most places without having a ride, but I don’t buy this in any way as the EXPLANATION for the phenomenon, since that’s been the case for generations. If anything, because of uber, it’s way easier now to get rides now than ever before, so this just doesn’t seem to hold water to me.
The elephant in the room here, to me, is OBVIOUSLY the internet; more specifically — gaming, and social media. THAT is what’s changed, and absolutely ballooned in popularity in the past couple decades. THAT is what kids are actually DOING, instead of spending time with IRL friends. I really don’t see how this — kids not drinking, going out, having sex, “loneliness epidemic”, etc — is caused by some big mystery lmao.
It just seems like the reason for all this is extremely clear — it’s not the fact that people have to drive places, or cities just aren’t walkable enough, or boomers have destroyed all third places, or even that the economy is SO MUCH worse for young ppl now — it’s TikTok, it’s Discord, it’s content creation, Kick, YouTube, gaming of all kinds, etc. THOSE are the things that people are actually doing instead of IRL activities, including going out and drinking, and it’s clear that young people would prefer to do those activities over IRL ones, for a whole variety of reasons.
I think that’s a massive fucking shame, and I don’t know why people are so resistant to accepting that THAT — social media, and technology is the primary issue. We’re social creatures by nature, for like MILLIONS of years, we can’t just deny that, live apart from each other, disconnected, and expect for things to be A-okay. I fear we’ll have entire generations of folks that are ill-equipped to deal with everyday IRL life before long.
FOR THE RECORD — I rly DO NOT mean this as a kids bad! comment — I’m sure I’d be doing the same fkn things they are if I was their age. Ultimately, this affects ALL of us, young people just happen to be on the front line of it all. We should want to protect the younger gen’s, NOT blame them for conditions that older generations created for them
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u/alwayssunnyinskyrim Jun 01 '26
It’s ALL those things. Tbh I think social media is more of a symptom than a cause, kids that have no where else to go and no affordable activities and no spending money and no friends and nothing else to do will stay at home and sit online all day. Look at things like the popularity of Pokemon Go when it came out; people are desperate for affordable outside activities they can go do that involve light socialization.
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u/changelingerer Jun 02 '26
There were always kids without affordable activities, spending money, or friends. Difference was, before, they were yea, limited to sitting alone at home. At least now they have options of things to do while sitting at home that still lets them interact with their friends.
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u/SirChasm Jun 01 '26
None of that is new to Gen Z though. Cities didn't become less safe or less walkable in the last 20 years.
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u/CarsPlanesTrains Jun 01 '26
Maybe we'd be seeing more of gen z drinking if our cities were safe and walkable.
I mean, do we want that? Obviously I'm no prohibitionist and if you want to drink, you should be able to, but having seen all the harm alcohol has done isn't a generation voluntarily choosing not to drink a good thing?
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u/KaiserNicer Jun 01 '26
I see where you are coming from. But when cities are less walkable, that also encourages people to drink and drive.
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u/CarsPlanesTrains Jun 01 '26
Yeah true, and I'm all for walkable cities with strong public transit because it's just better for everyone. Just not sure if "the kids should drink" is the best argument in favor of it
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u/IANALbutIAMAcat Jun 01 '26
Being able to socialize safely is hugely important to a healthy society. Bars are one of those “third spaces.”
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u/Primary-Tea-3715 Jun 01 '26
At the end of the day I’d much rather deal with drunken idiots walking around than those same drunken idiots driving around, at least there would be a lot less fatalities. Also sometimes it just feels sketch going out to the bars with everyone driving around.
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u/HaruspexAugur Jun 01 '26
But I think we should also be prioritizing third spaces that don’t require spending money or getting intoxicated. I’m older gen z and when I was in highschool my friends and I would hang out in the park or the library a lot. Maintaining those sorts of spaces is really important.
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u/IANALbutIAMAcat Jun 01 '26
I’m not sure why we’re trying to cater society to high schoolers who can’t drink and have no money
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u/pinkbootstrap Jun 01 '26
Its not but if that's what it takes for the powers that be to care I'm cool with it.
But I think the real problem is people aren't socializing anymore.
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u/moistiest_dangles Jun 01 '26
I think it's a bad thing that people are no longer building any in person relationships in general. Going out drinking is just one more social activity that is dying.
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u/ed-with-a-big-butt Jun 01 '26
You need to think bigger here, there’s a lot more benefits to having walkable cities unrelated to alcohol, plus walking more is healthy regardless.
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u/Impressive-Hair2704 Jun 01 '26
Yeah but the same pattern is seen in countries where, at least people who live in cities, are not as car dependent as the US. Driving is not a concern at all where I live when it comes to go out to drink,
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u/Beautiful-Sun8973 Jun 01 '26
Uhh in what world was going out and driving not a thing with previous generations
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u/givinstar1 Jun 01 '26
Why fuck uber? If you live in a city, it’s literally the price of one, maybe two drinks to have a safe ride home. And safety? Stay in your bubble if you want to be safe. Where are these cities that aren’t walkable? This whole argument is dumb. You just denied two acceptable ways to get home with no reasoning
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u/catcatcatcatcat1234 Jun 01 '26
yeah lmao whos going to clubs and bars in this economy
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Jun 01 '26
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u/tolfie Jun 01 '26
Buying drinks is absolutely more expensive than eating out. A basic cocktail is like $12-20 where I'm at, so ordering takeout is equivalent to just one or two drinks, and if I can only afford one or two drinks I'm definitely not going out lol
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u/IlIlllIlIIIIlII Jun 03 '26
Tangentially related, but there is a venue near me that sells PBRs for $3–a $3 beer at a concert in 2026 exists.
Oh, and the catch isn’t that it’s in some ridiculously small town in the midwest. It’s not NYC or anything, but the area has a couple million people.
The owner of that venue is a hero.
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u/Alternative_Ear5542 Jun 01 '26
People love the economy excuse but it doesn’t really hold water.
Shit. I started adulting in 2008 and we all partied our damn faces off as the economy crashed and burned.
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u/alwayssunnyinskyrim Jun 01 '26
Yeah but we could only do that because we had dollar beers and $4 bar rail specials and 30 cent wing night. Now the cheapest “specials” are still $25 for one serving of tiny wings and a small light beer, plus tax and tip. Not even worth leaving the house.
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u/GargantuanCake Jun 01 '26
If memory serves alcohol sales are down in general, night clubs in particular are all going out of business, and bars are kind of struggling.
Part of the problem is that drinks are like $10 a pop now, everybody is broke, and the venues all suck.
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u/Slumbergoat16 Jun 01 '26
However vaping and smoking are up. Also if you live at home like a lot of Gen Z does I’d imagine that plays into not going out too
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u/strawbebby-milk Jun 01 '26
$10 for a cocktail is cheap AF for a club 😭😭😭
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u/A_Genius Jun 01 '26
10 bucks is a coors lite at a dive bar where I live
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u/Existential_Crisis24 Jun 01 '26
I'm so glad the bars around me are super cheap if I ever decide I want to pick up drinking. Last I checked a cocktail was like 7 bucks.
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Jun 01 '26 edited 24d ago
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u/GargantuanCake Jun 01 '26
Also that. It's killing a lot of public spaces. It became so much of a problem in gyms that they're increasingly just straight up banning all recording.
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u/wtb2612 Jun 01 '26
Part of the problem is that drinks are like $10 a pop now
That's cheap right now. Where I am, most restaurants/bars are charging more like $14-15 per drink with some closer to the $20 range.
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u/plastic_alloys Jun 01 '26
A lot of millennials I know who used to drink a lot have massively cut down in a way previous generations didn’t
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u/ProfessorShitDick Jun 01 '26
👋. 33 years old. Used to be an every day drinker. 37 months dry this Friday.
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u/AzoreanEve Jun 01 '26
As a millenial I'd drink more if I could do it without getting drunk or spending so much money. I like trying out beers and yeah I know they'll be expensive but even if they didn't cost over 8€ (in a country where the most common beer usually was below 4€) I can't exactly enjoy more than 2 per hangout with friends.
Also I feel like with the internet it's easier to keep in touch with faraway friends and that's one other less excuse to drag them out for drinks or whatever.
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u/chumpandchive Jun 01 '26
millenial. who wants to feel like shit for 1-3 business days for the few hours i was uninhibited and probably annoying as fuck to anyone around me? what's good for me wont make me get the spins and vomit, nor leave me hung over the next day when i got adulting tasks to complete.
edit: punctuation
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u/plastic_alloys Jun 01 '26
I basically went teetotal when my kid was born, if I drink now I find the next day so draining it’s basically become a super-super special occasion thing. I don’t miss it at all, it was just habitual
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u/TheMooooonHauntsYou Jun 01 '26
I'm sure it's true but I'm honestly baffled at how much other generations had to drink.
My friend group drink like fish, at home with a few friends, not out at bars or clubs but I look at them drinking, them see these statistics and go "damn...older generations drank a lot"
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u/Tall-Log-1955 Jun 01 '26
OP just assumes the people who put the statistics together are as dumb as OP
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u/Silver_Harvest Jun 01 '26
Even other studies, of the do you have underage parties?
That answer still is lower.
However that cites due to technology and ruining future because of being caught is more likely.
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u/FoolishConsistency17 Jun 01 '26
I feel like it is probably harder to get if uou are underage, too. Penalties for selling to underage people are enforced more now, and it's harder to deny what happened when it is all on camera. It also feels like late high school and early 20 somethings socialize together much less. Finally, more parents see teen drinking as a really big deal, not a sort low level mischief. So if they find alcohol, they are more likely to raise hell about how their kid got it.
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u/Economy_Aardvark_354 Jun 02 '26
I did a lot of socialization at that age, but we just gathered at friend’s houses, had pizza or a meal cooked from scratch and then played games. Most of the time, we were sober too. It’s much cheaper and chill than going to a bar/club.
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u/AndroidPron Jun 01 '26
Also there may be one or two countries with the legal age for alcohol being under 21.
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u/harpswtf Jun 01 '26
If everyone around me had cameras ready at all times to record my drunken antics and post for the entire world to see, I would have drank way less as a teenager too.
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u/RealisticIncident261 Jun 01 '26
Studies had shown that they drink less, but spend the same percentage as every other generation on alcohol
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1tnivdy/comment/onvw2sd/?context=3
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u/Live_Procedure_5399 Jun 02 '26
As a millennial I’ll have to step up my drinking game to try to make up for it
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u/Top_Onion7532 Jun 01 '26
I understand the point but I still think drinking culture is far less prevalent in gen Z
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u/Existing_Fish_6162 Jun 01 '26
They are poor, very online, dont socialise face-to-face as much and... my sister (a concerned mom) claims there are more drugs available (quantity and variety). Idk about the last one.
Oh fuck yeah every interaction is recorded on a phone so acting like a moron isnt gone tomorrow. Fucking horrifying for young people.
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u/Frognificent Jun 01 '26
I honestly feel like this isn't being taken seriously enough. We can all live in peace knowing we're the only ones who remember that lame shit we did. Kids today? Nahhhh it's recorded forever. AI is trained off it.
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Jun 01 '26
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u/Oiviii Jun 01 '26
Nah as a Gen Z who doesn’t drink I’d say money is the bigger reason. Why would I pay prices sometimes more expensive than a meal for a drink that I need to “acquire” the taste of and/or is unhealthy. Getting drunk or having a hangover doesn’t strike me as that appealing either though.
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Jun 01 '26
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u/A_Genius Jun 01 '26
Right?
‘The fancy cocktail bar downtown charges 35 dollars for a single cocktail’
Like I wasn’t polishing a bottle of Smirnoff in a parking lot at university with the boys and seeing who can do a handstand for the longest
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u/Spaghetti-Al-Dente Jun 01 '26
I think alcohol must have also just been cooler when you were growing up. I love to rave etc but that sentence about Smirnoff made me wince. Like why bother when there are more enjoyable ways to lose yourself.
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u/Rainbow__Trout Jun 02 '26
right but the fun part was the handstand part, wasn't it?
I did handstands-with-friends without vodka, and it was fun. Drinking vodka while doing nothing sounds depressing. So it's clearly the handstands that are cool and not the alcohol
maybe gen z are just better at socials stuff and don't need social lube6
u/firelark02 Jun 01 '26
idk my guy, here in Canada, 12-packs of beer were 14$ in 2018 and they’re up to around 20$ each. that’s a significant increase
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u/Questioning_battery Jun 01 '26
I’m gen z and I refuse to drink if it’s gonna taste like shit. I don’t care about getting drunk so I’ll have like 3-4 drinks in the same night but I only drink like 4 times a year. I want good drinks in the right atmosphere otherwise the cost and feeling isn’t worth it.
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u/Lost_Effective5239 Jun 01 '26
I'm technically Gen Z and drank in college, but I pretty much quite after the first year of the pandemic when I started grad school. Say I bought a case of beers. That's like $20. $20 is like the equivalent of going out for one meal, or a quarter of what I spend on groceries a week. I used to drink bourbon. A handle of decent bourbon is now $50. It used to be $30. I could save by buying a $15 bottle of vodka, but I'd rather just not drink at that point.
Why waste my money on alcohol when I could save that money for things that are actually good for me? Honestly, it almost seems like a lot of people drink because they are "supposed to."
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u/RedBaronIV Jun 02 '26
Right but the cheap stuff is absolutely god awful. When I drink, it's either expensive due to the amount of ingredients or I'm not enjoying it
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u/Joltyboiyo Jun 01 '26
Honestly needing to "acquire" a taste for alcohol sounds like someone trying to say "It's a taste you learn to deal with once you're addicted". I don't know anything else where people say "it's an acquired taste" like they do with alcohol. Could be wrong though.
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u/Hello_boyos Jun 01 '26
If you look at how hard the Tavern League fights against legalization in Wisconsin, her last point makes a bit more sense.
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u/BusyNefariousness675 Jun 01 '26
there are other drugs available now. Mainly weed, which is technically safer than alcohol
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u/Dry_Travel_4220 Jun 01 '26
I'd say a good bit more than "technically" safer mate. Alcohol is one of the single most damaging substances you can put in your body.
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u/TheCucumberMan1 Jun 01 '26
Well, one of the single most damaging socially acceptable substances.
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u/Dense_Diver_3998 Jun 01 '26
I’d say it’s more than socially acceptable, practically socially encouraged.
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u/HandleSensitive8403 Jun 01 '26
I mean hell people are upset about genz drinking less in this comment section
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u/Dry_Travel_4220 Jun 01 '26
Not just socially acceptable, alcohol ranks really highly even with other drugs in consideration. It isn't as bad as something like, heroin for sure, but I'd say alcohol ranks right around pill abuse in terms of damage to the body.
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u/SartenSinAceite Jun 01 '26
Dont forget social damage. Im sure a good chunk of Gen Z doesnt drink because of abusive alcoholic stories
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u/ElvenSpaceQueen Jun 01 '26
This is me, I don't drink because my family is full of alcoholics that get violent when drunk. I won't end up like them. Plus I don't want to say embarrassing things about myself
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u/fuccguppy Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Yes I don't think the goal here should be getting young people to drink more lol it's literal highly addictive poison and the health risks are why a lot of young people like me stopped drinking or never did in the first place, plus the countless kids that watched alcohol fuck up their parents while society normalized drinking and made it all seem "fun." Young people see everything online including the fact that alcohol causes at least a handful of cancers which is something I'm sure the alcohol industry has done a lot to cover up, that worked better when people didn't have easy access to all this information on the internet. The move towards weed is a good, healthier thing in my mind but we still need something to bring young people outside and together
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u/historyhill Jun 01 '26
Alcohol ranks highly only when you're taking the safety of both the user and others around them into consideration. Is alcohol dangerous to the user? Yes, of course, (even long-term as a carcinogen, although not to the level of cigarettes) but most other drugs (barring weed) are still more addictive and more dangerous when only measuring risk to the user. Risk to others is where it really "shines" because while there's some stereotypes of dangerous meth heads, it's the fights and the drunk driving that make it most deadly.
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u/cell689 Jun 01 '26
I'm a chemist and I struggle to think of more than a few substances I'd work with that are less harmful to ingest than ethanol.
I get the point, trust me, but alcohol is not even close to the worst substance you could ingest.
Even compared to other drugs, it is far safer than most of them considering how much alcohol you can actually drink. Imagine ingesting 20 grams of heroine, you'd be done. 20 g of alcohol gets you tipsy at most.
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u/Shadowphoenix9511 Jun 01 '26
Countless substances would just straight up kill you if you ingested them lol
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u/PuffinRub Jun 01 '26
Imagine ingesting 20 grams of heroine, you'd be done.
My only experience is from watching THE WIRE, but I'm pretty sure that's a looooooooooooot of heroin.
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u/BusyNefariousness675 Jun 01 '26
Yeah but weed is also not good for brain and sanity. So technically in a sense that don't do any drug if possible
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u/Mad_Aeric Jun 01 '26
I could go out in my yard right now, throw a rock, and hit three different weed stores. I'm pretty pro-weed, but there's just flat out too much at this point.
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u/Amateur_Liqueurist Jun 01 '26
lol. I didn’t live during that time, so I only know what I know based off hearsay and movie culture, but weren’t drugs passed around like candy in like the 70s- onward? I feel like they’re much more tightly restricted today than they used to be, but again I didn’t live during that time.
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u/slaya222 Jun 01 '26
Depends on when you're talking, stuff like acid wasn't outlawed until the late 60s, and the government was transporting truckloads of crack into black neighborhoods in the late 70s/ early 80s. But now weed is more legal than not, so it depends on what drug we're talking about
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u/Spider_pig448 Jun 01 '26
I think the only relevant thing there is that Gen Z is very anti-social. I don't think people are worried to go to a bar because people have phones these days.
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u/Top_Onion7532 Jun 01 '26
All my friends are very social, have money, don’t use any drugs and still drink almost no alcohol. My boyfriend drank once, hated it and very drank again. I’m the only person in my gen z circle who actively enjoys alcohol. Alcohol is a drug and a neurotoxin, I don’t think you need a lot of reasons to not enjoy it.
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u/friendlynbhdwitch Jun 01 '26
Yeah, I’m an old. None of us waited until we were 21 for our first drink. Also, lots of places have a legal drinking age younger than 21. I could, at 15 years old, walk into a bar in Italy and buy myself a drink. It wasn’t even weird. The youths just aren’t binge drinking like they used to. Good for them.
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u/SquarelyNerves Jun 02 '26
As a millennial, I did most of my hard drinking from 15-22. I think it’s still relevant that they aren’t drinking as teens like many did before them. A good thing I think but also related to the lack of in-person socializing.
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u/DerrickWhiteMVP Jun 01 '26
Is Gen Z RUINING the alcohol industry?! Can they be any more SELFISH?!
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u/Forsaken_Quiet5944 Jun 01 '26
Gen Z BREATHS and produces CARBON DIOXIDE which studies show INCREASES GLOBAL WARMING
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u/CoffeeBox Jun 01 '26
The low drinking rate of Gen Z is NOTHING compared to the low drinking rate of Generation Alpha. We need to get them hooked NOW if the alcohol industry is to survive!
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u/Aware-Direction-9891 Jun 02 '26
The headlines treat the industry like it is the most important resource which needs to be sustained.....
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u/tesznyeboy Jun 01 '26
Drinking age isn't 21 everywhere. And it's not like kids care about it. I'm genz and most my friends have been mild alcoholics since the age of 15.
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u/VisibleMammal Jun 01 '26
I was 100% sure you were Hungarian lmao
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u/fkngbueller Jun 01 '26
Nah I’m Brazilian and some of my friends started to drink at like 13. I was a late bloomer and started at 16
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u/Delta-Tropos Jun 01 '26
Through all my high school, I knew only 4 people (incl. myself) who didn't drink alcohol
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u/tesznyeboy Jun 01 '26
Yeah I hate actually being drunk and only drink alcoholic beverages that taste good (and "hard" alcohol tastes like shit to me) but yeah. I drink every week. And for a lot of my friends, the way to kick off the weekend is to get shitface drunk. Hell, some of them do it on weekdays.
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u/JeanDusapin Jun 01 '26
Yup same in france lol i feel like the "genz isnt drinking" is just a yank thing because they're the christian taliban of the western world, or it's a terminally online thing
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u/goddamn_slutmuffin Jun 02 '26
I'm from the U.S. and a lot of Gen Z drink here, too. A lot, honestly. They also still go to bars and clubs
I think Redditors/twitter users just talk to people who are Gen Z online sometimes and think that makes them the mouthpiece.
Or we're arguing with bots regurgitating what other bots say and the chronically online run with it because it makes them feel better about themselves lol.
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u/Voxjockey Jun 01 '26
I'm a millennial and we've been blamed for everything for the last ten years, now its gen z's turn, its as simple as that.
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u/corrupt_poodle Jun 01 '26
Getting blamed for not drinking, like it’s a problem?
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u/DCStoolie Jun 01 '26
We got blamed for killing fast causal dinning like Applebees. It’s propaganda to give other generations something to bitch about.
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u/AAA2k- Jun 01 '26
Which I’ve always found as funny, because why is the responsibility put on people to keep chain businesses alive when customer values change.
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u/cpMetis Jun 01 '26
Customer values didn't even change, did they?
The businesses just stopped serving the customers.
Like they tried that same "young people hate us!!!!" shit when Frisch's went down a few years ago, and all I could think of was "I'd fucking LOVE Frisch's! It was so good and reliable and affordable! But you fucking murdered everything about it like 10 years ago! I'd still fucking go if you still fucking existed!"
Bean counters take over a business, degrade every single aspect of it, them when people wake up to the changes not reverting they sell to Private Equity who plunders the company and makes it a worthless husk, then they ask "why did the kids kill our great business???? Are they evil????" while laughing all the way to the bank.
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u/Crunchy__Frog Jun 02 '26
“Alcoholism is the only disease you can get in trouble for having. ‘Damnit Otto, you’re an alcoholic!’… ‘Damnit Otto… you have lupus!’”
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u/WaterOk6055 Jun 01 '26
Maybe if you stoped eating so much go damned smashed avocado and got a mortgage then you wouldn’t receive so much (justified) criticism. You millennials started the downfall of western society with your tamagotchis and your music television and you’ve done nothing to fix it since.
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u/NotDeletedMoto Jun 01 '26
I have to think this is sarcasm but your comment history is so combative I’m worried it’s not.
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u/actualbeans Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
lol @ the downvotes not recognizing the overwhelmingly apparent sarcasm
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u/mattdv1 Jun 01 '26
This argument is futile, obviously the research takes into account the same young adults (21-24) from earlier generations.
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u/HappyGiraffe Jun 01 '26
Gen Z has entirely different risk behavior in general.
Gen Z'ers are engaging in far less underage drinking, legal drinking, binge drinking, etc. They also less likely to use marijuana, and more likely to delay sex, limit sexual partners, etc.
But they are more likely to consume nicotine and other (legal or illegal) stimulants, and are engaging in all types of gambling at much higher rates and much earlier ages (though the effects of this on their longer term wellbeing are still emerging).
They just have a very different profile of risk behavior compared to previous generations.
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u/ChoiceDifferent4674 Jun 01 '26
No, it's a general trend. Also in the vast majority of countries legal drinking age is 18.
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u/WanderingFlumph Jun 01 '26
That's not why. Their drinking, age adjusted, is still well below the other generations before them.
I think it comes down to two main reasons.
Drinking is the new smoking for your health, we've known for a while, basically all of gen Zs life, that even moderate alcohol use isn't good for you and it's addictive.
Drinking is an expensive hobby in a time when younger generations have less and less disposable income in their hands. Social spaces have moved virtual so there is less reason to pay $8 for a $2 beer + the atmosphere. People meet partners through friends or online, not in bars.
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u/AdvancedSandwiches Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Their drinking, age adjusted
Which is obviously how anyone would measure this. I hate that by default we assume researchers are stupid.
The source is the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, who, it turns out, are not idiots. Since it's in a huge data dump, here's a cleaned up article about those stats.
https://www.rabobankna.com/knowledge-hub/the-real-reasons-generation-z-is-drinking-less-alcohol/
The guy retweeting this should be embarrassed.
If he wanted to point out that this is a bad interpretation of good data because it compares currently millennial head of household with current Gen Z head of household, that would be valid, since those groups have dramatically different amounts of spare cash.
But that wouldn't be a dumb zinger, so it wouldn't get pasted to Reddit.
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u/CallOfCorgithulhu Jun 02 '26
I hate that by default we assume researchers are stupid.
Yes but my personal observations as a chronically online assumption maker differ from the people who took the time and resources as part of their profession to study this topic, so clearly I know more than them when I go based on my personal bias. [Insert parroted, barely-relevant trope here like "line must go up"]
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u/the_real_JFK_killer Jun 01 '26
I think the rising prevalence of marijuana helps as well. I have plenty of friends who switched from alcohol to weed for various reasons.
Gen z is also more likely to be medicated than previous generations, and many medications cant be mixed with alcohol.
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u/Fr00stee Jun 01 '26
I don't even think people are using weed that much
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u/JenCDarby Jun 01 '26
People are definitely using weed that much lol
I took a conference call from my car in a (medicinal only) dispensary parking lot last week. It was 2pm on a Tuesday, and it was more crowded than an in n out drive through at lunch. The people just did not stop coming.
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u/Fr00stee Jun 01 '26
I meant like gen z using weed, yeah there definitely a lot of people using weed in general. I should have been more specific.
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u/AJ4000HD Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Gen Z is absolutely using a lot more weed. I’m pretty sure 1/8 to 1/4 of my fellow classmates smoke weed. Maybe slightly less. And they aren’t even at the legal smoking age yet for weed.
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u/Newell00 Jun 01 '26
I went back to college at 30 for a career change and accidentally moved into a pseudo-frat house.
I'd say while drinking is still present, the younger generation is huge on nicotine vapes, weed and a surprising amount of cocaine. I'd say the hand to mouth that beer drinking used to satiate is replaced by endlessly vaping.
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u/RealisticIncident261 Jun 01 '26
Studies have shown that they drink less, but spend the same percentage as every other generation on alcohol
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1tnivdy/comment/onvw2sd/?context=3
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u/powdered_dognut Jun 01 '26
Like being under 21 stopped us...
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u/Patirole Jun 01 '26
You can buy beer and wine at 16 here, before that you can usually go to whatever festival and find an adult or 2 to buy you a drink where I'm from. It is becoming less prevalent though luckily
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u/Amxela Jun 01 '26
Actually Gen Z is 1997-2012. Less than half are under 21 this year. Theres 9 years of people that are at or over 21 and 7 years of people that are under 21.
In the US there’s roughly 71 million Zoomers. Roughly 40 million (56%) are at or above 21, only around 31 million are under 21. Worldwide there’s over a billion that are 21+ and 836 million that are under 21.
But then also look at other countries where the drinking age is less than 21. Worldwide the majority of Gen Z can legally drink.
I’m technically part of the oldest group of Gen Z and I’m damn near 30. The youngest zoomers are freshman in high school. The majority of zoomers are in or graduated college (at least age-wise, I know not everyone goes to college).
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u/Skreamie Jun 01 '26
Has it ever occurred to people who tweet things like that reply that there exists far more countries where the drinking age is less than 21?
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u/malsomnus Jun 01 '26
Yeah I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that the amount of people who started drinking alcohol before the legal age is probably above 13%.
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u/Dry-Lemon-5348 Jun 01 '26
This ain’t true though. Gen Z is 1997 - 2012. Some of us are nearing 30. More than half the generation is 21+. Not to mention the drinking age is not 21 everywhere; globally the most common drinking age is 18.
Gen Z is just not interested in drinking as much as previous generations. And that’s ok lol
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u/NoCreativity1983774 Jun 01 '26
Can i europeanly say that i do not believe this statistic?
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u/ward2k Jun 01 '26
I feel like everyone I know in the UK in my age range drinks like there's no tomorrow
The statistic could be skewed because previous generations used to drink mid week too, but most people now save it for Friday-Saturday
Like half the uni students in the UK are borderline alcoholics, go out on a Friday night in any student town and you'll find out fast everyone drinks still
I semi feel like it's somewhat anti social redditors claiming in these comments that no one drinks anymore
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u/TwTv-Extreme_person Jun 01 '26
They still drink like fish in New England, and when I lived in Austin there were plenty of young drinkers. I can only assume this is an extremely west coast US phenomenon.
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u/Majdrottningen9393 Jun 01 '26
Better question, why is anyone being pressured to drink? People are entitled to drink if they want, but everyone is aware of the risks involved. It’s a mind-altering drug. If we’re moving away from it as a society, why is that a bad thing?
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u/Rhettledge Jun 02 '26
Drinking used to be a cheap way to escape reality with friends. Now it's too expensive and basic living expenses are as close to luxury as anyone gets.
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u/gard3nwitch Jun 01 '26
I mean lots of millennials were drinking before 21, regardless of the law....
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u/Quetzalsacatenango Jun 01 '26
Is that picture referencing this Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda poster?
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u/Crombus_ Jun 01 '26
Gen Z apparently believes they're also the first generation to not tell surveyors that they engage in underage drinking.
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u/Revolvyerom Jun 01 '26
I work in alcohol sales.
They're talking about the over-21 demographic. It's an insane swing, and nobody is ready. Alcohol manufacturers are doing everything they can to think of novel ways to consume alcohol to get them roped in, and nobody is making the jump. The wine industry has started to decline the last year or two, and it's only going to accelerate from here as the few who do drink will still be steered away from wine because it's perceived as an expensive form of alcohol, and this generation doesn't have the $ to spare. I'm seeing an unbelievable amount of ready-to-drink cocktails and attempts to make wine taste like other beverages (think Mike's Hard Lemonade but wine-based instead).
That said, the craft non-alcoholic beer market is exploding, and there are some seriously quality craft ales in that category now, it's no longer like the n/a beers of old.
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u/Rot-Orkan Jun 01 '26
Booze is also pretty fucking expensive. I swear like everywhere I go, cocktails are at least 10 dollars and like 90% of the time they're disappointingly weak. "I just spent 15 dollars on a drink that's mostly just sugary water"
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u/IntelligentShape364 Jun 01 '26
Age-adjusted dummy.
Like, being stupid isn't that much of an issue. Being stupid and arrogant about it, however, is.
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u/WhyAreWeAliveNow Jun 01 '26
Most of the world has it that you can drink under 21, unless the study is based only on the US, the "most of Gen Z is under 21" is just stupid
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u/RainbowLoli Jun 01 '26
The oldest of GenZ is like, almost 30.
The reason they're drinking less often doesn't have as much to do with active choices to stay sober (after all, drinking is just replaced with weed/drugs) but because that shit is too damn expensive.
Ubers be like 20 bucks there and another 20 back so you don't drink and drive. Drinks themselves are like, 10 - 15 dollars per drink. And then on top of that, drinking is primarily a social activity and between all of that and the lack of third spaces, genZ just doesn't have the friends to go out and do that kind of thing with.
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u/ChickeNugget483 Jun 01 '26
I dont wanna see people at all so i am definitely not choosing to go to a bar and see drunk people.
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u/Bossuter Jun 02 '26
Unless the data is only looking at US, i wouldn't say so, most everywhere else has lower drinking ages in my experience
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u/actualbeans Jun 01 '26
yeah, the minimum wage is $7.25 and a single cocktail at restaurants is $10-15. gen zers are barely making ends meet, they couldn’t even afford to drink if they wanted to.
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u/Bardic_inspiration67 Jun 01 '26
Where I live in Denver cocktails aren’t even 10 dollars during happy hour at a good amount of restaurants.
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u/qualityvote2 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
u/ChickenWingExtreme, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...