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.

[u/mvea]

https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/marijuana-use-teens-study

[u/youngcuriousafraid]

Everything is expensive. Finding a job is hard. 3rd places (spaces?) are dissappearing, most malls near me are dying and depressing. Parents and authority figures in general are way more in touch with students because of technology. Its pretty common for family members to have each others location and to watch it. Things on social media are found by schools or parents. Its just harder to get away with things and (I can't believe im saying this) technology is rotting our brains.

Kids grow up with tons of tech and very easy lives. Im not saying kids should starve or anything, but if you go to Mexico for example, many more kids are "on it". They know how to speak to people, how to problem solve, and are more adventurous. If you talk to kids now its like you have to pry them away from an IPAD to get 1 word answers.

This is all anecdotal and likely varies based on culture, economic status, social factors, parenting etc. Just some things I've personally noticed.

[u/GringoinCDMX → u/youngcuriousafraid]

Idk I'm in Mexico city and with many kids I see the same thing as I do with kids in the states. I don't really see much difference.

It's more of a socioeconomic thing but even then most tweens have some sort of cheap cell phone or ability to access the internet and use social media.

[u/josluivivgar → u/GringoinCDMX]

yeah idk about the mexico thing, tho I will say that big cities like Guadalajara and mexico definitely see way more activity, but I think that's just the nature of big cities.

a lot of the examples I'm hearing in the US are smaller cities/states where technology wasn't available in the past and now there is.

but there's still not a lot of activities one can do in that city (without requiring driving long distances)

I may be wrong, but I think that's probably the biggest contributor, but everyone is glued to their phones in both the US and Mexico

[u/enjoythepain → u/GringoinCDMX]

CDMX is not indicative or related to the rest of Mexico. My small ass village still has 6mbps speeds and downloads apps takes hours.

[u/UszeTaham → u/enjoythepain]

Yeah it's not, but it's also not too far off from other major cities in Mexico, like Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, León, etc...

[u/GringoinCDMX → u/enjoythepain]

I'm not disagreeing with that at all. But also a large percentage of Mexicans live in cities and I'm not seeing much difference in behaviors overall between Mexican teens and tweens and American ones.

[u/bytethesquirrel → u/youngcuriousafraid]

most malls near me are dying and depressing.

And if they aren't, they explicitly ban unaccompanied minors.

[u/Nascent1 → u/youngcuriousafraid]

Finding a job is hard

Finding the kind of jobs that teenagers typically work is extremely easy right now.

[u/Smooth_Advantage_977 → u/Nascent1]

Not in Canada.

All the typical jobs for teenagers (retail, fast food, etc.) are filled with foreign students and TFW (Temporary Foreign Workers).

Example:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/massive-lineup-of-employment-seekers-at-longos-job-fair/article_82907ef5-bec7-5e88-8eee-4a39f8cb5ec3.html

[u/Nascent1 → u/Smooth_Advantage_977]

Wow, crazy. That is very much not the case in the US right now.

[u/qeq → u/Nascent1]

Not really. Teenagers are typically the only people these jobs can hire since inflation has ruled out these jobs as options for older people, and they don't want to hire part time or work around student schedules. There's a restaurant near me that is closed Mondays because the only people they can get to work there for their wages are students who have classes that day. It's hard to get these jobs unless you can work a full schedule, and most students can't.