Young Americans are drinking a lot less than they used to. That bodes ill for America.
Let me explain. A new report making headlines from the research organization Monitoring the Future reveals that the percentage of teenage Americans who had tried alcohol in 2025 was lower than at any time since the data had been collected. In the mid-1970s, 92 percent of 12th graders had tried at least a sip of alcohol; by 2025, that proportion had fallen almost by half, to 47 percent.
On the one hand, this is good news, given the many problems created by underage drinking—and I include those of my own besotted youth. But the new finding also indicates a trend that is distinctly less cheery: an unwillingness to take risks associated with adult behaviors. This is a point persuasively made by the psychologist Jean Twenge, who has shown that among adolescents and young adults, all manner of risk-taking—from having sex to driving a car—has tanked in recent years.
