Today's teens are a more sober, less social generation

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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