Why Gen Z is drinking less | Hacker News Reader

Why Gen Z is drinking less

time.com

3 pointsPaulHoule14 comments

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They can't afford to go out, drink, smoke, have kids, or go to clubs.

Modern mobile apps dominate the social interaction space, and cost nothing.

Ergo, no one goes out, and interactions happen through apps.

Gen Z's approach to alcohol signifies a broader transformation in lifestyle choices

Booze, cigarettes, gas (and car ownership costs) and all-night diners used to be affordable across the US.

These days, what's cheap? Internet access, social media, music/podcast/video services, certain games, fast fashion hauls.

An actual night out with friends these days? Not cheap at all. It's a rational economic decision.

Never stopped people from piss poor countries from enjoying all of those things.

Besides the change is probably the same for the better off Gen Z people as well.

> Booze, cigarettes, gas

If the government took less of a tax cut from these items they would be a little more affordable.

Also, Z's still smoke, but it's in the form of Zyn patches and nicotine bars.

Booze is mostly a women and poor person thing now. And gas, most of the Z's don't seem to drive because their parents always chauffeured them.

... and vaping. Though it's pretty strange to me to see people of all ages who seem pretty cool (like somebody really creative who runs a green/handmade clothing store and teaches classes in block printing and such) and then they take a hit of a vape in front of me and I think a little less of them.

(My Z son though will smoke a pipe occasionally, we watched the Russian version of Sherlock Holmes which made him carve an absurdly large pipe which I even took a few puffs of; my nicotine use is at the once yearly level, I'll share a ceremonial cigar and if I'm visiting a third world country I might get a pack of the local cigs)

it's a woman thing? wtf

You don't live in the city and see the cocktail hour, tini time signs and ads? Also, all the cocktail menus are for really sweet drinks.

I assume this is appealing to young or women drinkers?

My nearby city had two all night diners and an all-night sub shop before the pandemic plus the Wegmans supermarket was 24 hours and the Wal-Mart supercenter was 24 hours. Now it all shuts down.

My Gen Z son is a gearhead and is proud of his '96 Buick. Although he finds "anti-woke" politics attractive, he won't listen to people carping about the price of gas, he thinks the current price is a bargain and even if we got the $400/ton CO2 tax I advocate he says it would be worth it to him to pay $7-$8 a gallon. He gets what a miracle fossil fuels are [1]

I got my driver's license when I was 21 which was slow for my generation (there was the time I borrowed a Cadillac de Ville from a hung over friend to take the driver's test, clipped a curb and failed it, then got back in and drove home) he wasn't in a hurry either. Many of his friends are in their early 20s and still don't drive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_slave

We had that same change in my town, though for seemingly unrelated reasons. Even before COVID, the 24-hour Wal-Mart supercenter started closing from midnight to 6 AM because of shoplifters. The 24-hour restaurants closed at night during COVID and the customers didn't come back after normal business resumed. I do wonder where night owls go these days.

Our homeless colony has 10x'ed in recent years and been moved away from a spot owned by the Norfolk Southern railroad to one owned by the city, immediately behind the Wal-Mart. The area is now saturated by untreated schizophrenics and security alone is a reason for reduced hours.

Yes. Specifically a decline in vitality.

Accumulated epigentic damage? (Is it bad to born to older parents? The same environmental poisons that made us all fat since 1980?)

Less tolerance for difference in the public schools? (It used to be you were different, now you get a diagnosis)

Some biological damage (from microplastics, pollution, etc), some social, some "path of least resistance" when economic conditions favor it, and probably all together: extreme rat race, extreme individualism, extreme narcissism, loneliness epidemic, depression epidemic, reduced sperm potency...

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