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.
For example: Now that Gen Z is firmly in the workforce, financial researchers have begun to look at these young adults’ investing habits. The conventional wisdom is that young people are piling into crypto and meme stocks—and some certainly are. But on average, members of Gen Z prefer safer, liquid assets and avoid high-risk investments, compared with older cohorts.
Lest you think this is simply evidence of prudential wisdom about finances, Gen Z is even more resistant to high-stakes investments in other people. In 1980, 90 percent of 35-year-old men were married; today, the rate is 60 percent and falling fast. In 1993, 83 percent of 12th-grade girls said they hoped to marry at some point; by 2023, only 61 percent said the same.
Some of this stems from a lack of self-confidence: The percentage of 12th-grade girls who believe they would make a “very good spouse” fell by 11 percentage points from 2012 to 2022. (The decrease for boys was 8 points.) But the data generally point to the fact that rising rates of anxiety—which creates risk aversion—are a big reason why members of Gen Z are avoiding real-life relationships. For example, higher anxiety among young people predicts a preference for digital messaging over face-to-face interaction. And according to recent data analysis by the University of Washington’s Ryan Burge, this anxiety extends far beyond a preference for texting. Nearly three-quarters of Gen Z say “you can’t be too careful” in dealing with people—far and away the highest of any age cohort. Depressingly, only 13 percent of Gen Zers say that most people can be trusted. The result is that in pursuit of avoiding risk, Gen Z is avoiding people.
