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Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

chicagotribune.com

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Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#121
post #15

There are a pile of different answers to these questions (not question), ones that should be asked separately. For example, excluding factors that affect all the questions, putting off drinking is likely a combination of consumer education and the difficulty in getting alcohol pre-21. Fewer adults want to provide their younger peers alcohol because of legal risks. Driving is the combination of increasing expense to d…

Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education.

I knew a guy older than me who came of age in the hippie era. He had slept with a lot more people than me. He once said "TV channels stopped broadcasting at 9pm. There wasn't anything else to do after 9 o'clock at night besides sex and drugs."

You can now get TV and internet 24/7 and even in small towns you can sometimes find stores and eateries open at all hours. Also, I think historically people turned to sex to get certain emotional needs met that can now be met a variety of ways.

As one flippant example: These days, you can post selfies to get adoration from many internet strangers telling you how gorgeous you are. You don't necessarily need a sex life to get that kind of feedback. Back in the day, an ordinary person who was not a celebrity could not get something like that any way but from a sexual relationship.

In my marriage, we spent thousands of dollars on furniture because it was one of the few things we agreed on and, outside of sex, furniture shopping was about the only time I had his undivided attention. We could have saved scads of money if he had just been willing to have more of a goddamn relationship with his goddamn wife.

For that and other reasons, I have spent a lot of years thinking long and hard about the myriad different reasons people do things. And we just have a lot more options these days for getting some need met without sex that, at one time, we would have had sex to try to meet.

I don't think that's a bad thing.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#122

They're not smoking either. Those things are no longer cool badges of maturity, independence, or rebellion. Instead, they're getting piercings and tattoos, identifying as alternative genders, sexting, and claiming more flexible sexual orientations. Alarms the old folks just as effectively.

Kids these days, now we can't even store sex in a bool. And they want another float for gender! Back in my day we had one bit for each, and we liked it.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#123

They're not smoking either. Those things are no longer cool badges of maturity, independence, or rebellion. Instead, they're getting piercings and tattoos, identifying as alternative genders, sexting, and claiming more flexible sexual orientations. Alarms the old folks just as effectively.

Federal taxes on cigarettes went up 250% to pay for health care/SCHIP in the past 30 years or so. There is a pretty good correlation with smoking rates and cost of cigarettes. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.82.1.9...

Taxes do work, though demand for tobacco is relatively inelastic: http://www.who.int/tobacco/economics/meetings/dublin_demand_...

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listen to any pop or hip hop station. Here's Mask Off (Future ft Drake) - peaked at 5 on Billboard Hot 100 this summer. The hook is mostly this: "percocet, molly percocet" Then check out dubstep and EDM subculture. There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the states. Molly is a massive component of these events.

> There is probably a massive rave event happening every weekend in the states. How much of that is the teens described in this article? The subjects of the article seem to be mostly post-millennial (current high schoolers) who enjoy hanging at home with their parents. The average age of a massive rave goer probably skews a bit more towards the college and early 20s age bracket.

Yeah true. I think the long tail filled in the gaps left by iconic artists wrt millenials.

Smaller bands & artists, vloggers and streamers. For this unaware, check out how dedicated fans of a 500k subscriber YouTube vlog channel are.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#125
When I was growing up, generally speaking, the total # of people you ever came into contact with were the people you physically came in contact with.

With the internet, social media, etc. today's kids, socially, are probably equipped with the tools (if used properly) to become my generation's equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude 15-18 year olds having sex aren't meeting on Tinder and then going to an SF bar to get $14 cocktails. Sex in high school is about as cheap as it gets.

I think you are failing to take into account compounded interest and opportunity cost. Efforts you make when you’re young get compounded during the rest of your life time and the time you spend learning the intricacies of human mating is time that you could spend doing so many other things. Especially today when you can’t just start working at a factory at 18 and expect lifetime employment. Not just that, human matin…

Do you think these thoughts are going through the minds of most 17 year olds?

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#127
post #75
post #15

There are a pile of different answers to these questions (not question), ones that should be asked separately. For example, excluding factors that affect all the questions, putting off drinking is likely a combination of consumer education and the difficulty in getting alcohol pre-21. Fewer adults want to provide their younger peers alcohol because of legal risks. Driving is the combination of increasing expense to d…

There's strong correlations as well. Less working likely means less money. Less money means less alcohol. Less alcohol means less sex.

I find it rather amusing that people assume teens have to drink in order to have sex. In my experience as a teen, drinking was something I did with other guys mostly and the relationships I had were more about curiosity and alcohol wasn't all that involved.

Is it just me or do kids in general seem more complacent these days?

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#128

They're not smoking either. Those things are no longer cool badges of maturity, independence, or rebellion. Instead, they're getting piercings and tattoos, identifying as alternative genders, sexting, and claiming more flexible sexual orientations. Alarms the old folks just as effectively.

Please cut the outdated ignorant bigotry about gender and sexual orientation.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#129
post #3

Because todays kids are coddled and have a 'safety net' of being able to stay home and not join 'adulthood'. I mean when I was a teen ager - my parents couldn't afford to support me. I had no way of staying home and riding it out. If I wanted anything in my late teens (car, fuel, guitar, computer, books, money for dates - etc.) I had to come up with the money for it - my parents provided shelter, food, clothing and a…

Kids today also take less drugs and commit less violent crimes. Less drinking is nothing wrong either (plus schools treat drinking as grave offense instead of minor infraction it should be ). Responsible attitude towards sex (wait for partner you trust, do it only if you have proction) means less of it untill you have stable partner.

With exception of driving, we have bundle of starts about kids being better behaved then previous generation. Meanwhile, previous generation complains, cause if you are not like them you are weak.

There were always rich kids and poor kids. Rich kids always got gifts from parents and poor kids still don't get them.

Re: Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking?

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prior is like yours: There are likely different answers to the various points listed above. Regarding this one: > Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education. Higher pregnancy rates are seen in populations with no or bad sexual education. Also, you are 'held to the fire' by the state if you get someone pregnant. It's possible that the easy availability of porn has a lot more to do with this than just…

I would add Tinder as another reason for less sex. You have thousands of posible candidates on your finger prints, why wouldn't you get the perfect one? So people skip most people and only small percent succeed. Before you were in the bar with few less options, darker and with more alcohol, so you were more likely to match someone more real and normal.

I sounds unlikely to me that an app for casual encounters is the reason people have less sex...
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