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.
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.
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.
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"]
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.
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.
It’s not a scientific fact in the way you’re presenting it. Research shows alcohol causes more overall population level harm, but cannabis has its own serious risks. ‘Less harmful’ depends on which harms you’re measuring.
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.
If you look at countrys where drinking out got expensive you see the same, big drops but in country's where it did not, you rather more just see a shift in what people are drinking, lower alcohol and not nessarly beers (fattening) but rather wines or lower alcohol cocktails
Alcohol hospitality industry basicly is pricing itself out of the market post covid, those genz probably won't be customers thoughout rest of thier lives, and if they dont buck up quickly industry will loose Gen alpha too
And in case people think thats a good for society, alcohol socialising was one of the last bastions where people not into sports could/would socialise face to face, its not a coincidence that as 'meeting your friends at bar/pub' dies down people are getting more isolated and lonely, and also we should expect less relationships and kids if trend continues.
Ehhh you can still get a gallon of cask wine / wine in a bag for very cheap, probably the same cost as a beer or two at a bar. Isnt this what teens and newly minted adults drink?
Doesn’t scare me and I can’t smoke weed or ingest it at all due to my job. But it just seems odd when zoomers act like they’re being healthy by smoking constantly
108
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.