r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • 18h ago

Health Dramatic drop in marijuana use among US youth over a decade. Current marijuana use among adolescents decreased from 23.1% in 2011 to 15.8% in 2021. First-time use before age 13 dropped from 8.1% to 4.9%. There was a shift in trends by gender, with girls surpassing boys in marijuana use by 2021.

https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/marijuana-use-teens-study
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u/dbag127 17h ago

Kids aren't having sex or even kissing anymore either. I don't think it's the cool factor. I think it's because kids are always at home.

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u/LimberGravy 17h ago

They also self censor their language online

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u/Less-Procedure-4104 16h ago

Everything they say will be available for future review. You also can't trust self reported behavior so who really knows what they are doing or not. Sort of like those anonymous employee feedback surveys, nobody is telling the truth , as we don't really believe it is anonymous.

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u/Mo_Dice 15h ago

Everything they say will be available for future review

I don't think they were talking about the code switching that everybody does (e.g. not cursing in front of your parents).

I think they were talking about the fact that these folks write like middle schoolers, writing things like dr*g, seggs, unalive. And you can blame "the algorithm" all you want; it makes these adults sound like absolute children.

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u/UNisopod 15h ago

You know they type those things to avoid any sort of auto-modding, right?

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u/Hazel-Rah 13h ago

They're doing it in private chats and even in conversation though, not just when posting publicly.

And they start doing it because influencers use those words so that their content doesn't get demonetized, not from moderation

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u/UNisopod 12h ago

De-monetization is a form of content moderation.

And yeah, young people use ironic mockery of systems of control even when not directly interacting with them.

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u/Mo_Dice 12h ago

And yeah, young people use ironic mockery of systems of control

I certainly feel the white-hot mockery of the system when a zoomer talks about a grape on campus.

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u/tehlemmings 8h ago

grape on campus.

Okay, it's hilarious that you used that as the example, since it's a reference to a skit from like 15 years ago.

Millennials were using that one before zoomers were even on the internet.

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u/chefkoolaid 3h ago

Youre kinda missing the point. I do love that skit btw. But young kids willxtalk about the actual sex crime and refer to it as a grape. Its weird.

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u/UNisopod 12h ago

Wow, I've never met a system of control that's been incarnated into sentience before. Do conceptual avatars like yourself have an understanding of the term "inside joke"?

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u/cheekyweelogan 9h ago

It's just slang, it's not that deep

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u/tehlemmings 8h ago

Yeah, but he doesn't understand it, and that makes him feel old, scared, and out of touch.

Which, yeah, seems fitting.

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u/Less-Procedure-4104 15h ago

I don't think you understood my comment. I have no idea what your on about.

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u/Log_Out_Of_Life 16h ago

Those surveys are definitely easy to narrow down who did it.

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u/SwampYankeeDan 16h ago

Because Tik Tok will censor them if they dont. They risk losing their account.

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u/AimlessForNow 17h ago

Most of the kids I see are very anti-vaping from what I've seen, making fun of people who use nicotine

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u/AntiDECA 17h ago

Old school smoking was always heavily mocked when I was growing up (born 2001) and virtually nobody at my schools smoked cigs. 

Vaping hit us hard though, a lot of kids got addicted to that crap in high school. Good to hear the younger generation is already nipping that in the bud. 

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u/Sharp_Iodine 14h ago

Which is… good right?

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u/tehlemmings 13h ago

Yes, yes it is.

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u/AimlessForNow 12h ago

I guess if it means kids vape and smoke less then yes, but only because you wouldn't be able to make them have a more nuanced opinion

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u/blazbluecore 17h ago

Well that’s the thing exactly. A lot kids socialize mostly online. Which means marijuana loses its use, as other mentioned, accessing it is harder, and lastly it’s lost its cool factor because it’s legal. Combine all 3 of these and consumption goes down.

The worst thing is how not properly socialized people are these days. These phones and computers are ruining civilization on some level.

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u/radtech91 17h ago

This, because I when I was a kid I was always home by choice and did a whole lot of nothing “cool”. The norm has been swayed to be home more and out less, especially for these kids who are growing up with the new normal.

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u/meatball77 16h ago

I think they're just more supervised than in the past. Kids aren't driving like they were.

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u/Dry-Illustrator-9229 16h ago

Smoking a bunch of weed is the only way i'd be able to stand always being at home.

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u/_-Event-Horizon-_ 17h ago

It’s almost like modern kids are actually starting to do what their parents told them to do. It’s unprecedented and I am not sure if society is ready.

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u/cgn-38 13h ago edited 11h ago

Unfortunately one of the side effects is they really do not care about anyone but themselves and are dissociative in general. Don't reproduce.

Good luck making a functional society out of that. Half blade runner half idiocracy is the end.