Call them Generation Dry, high school teens are increasingly saying no to the booze and it could be because they are spending more time at home with their eyes glued to a screen.
A new study has found a dramatic drop in youth drinking over the last 20 years, with social media replacing high school ragers.
The study released on Thursday from the University of Otago Wellington campus compared attitudes to drinking among high school students in 1999-2001 to those in 2022.
Public health researcher Dr Jude Ball and her colleagues interviewed 64 students aged between 14 and 17 at a co-ed school in Wellington in 2022, and compared their views to 41 Christchurch students aged 14-17 who took part in a 1999-2001 study, the Adolescent Friendships and Lifestyles Project.
The results showed two decades ago, more than half of the high schoolers were regularly drinking and going to parties by the time they were in Year 10. By Year 12, all had at least some experience of using alcohol with their peers.
"The majority had been drunk at least once or twice and many drank to intoxication on a weekly basis," Dr Ball said.
But flash forward to last year, only one of the Year 10 students reported drinking alcohol socially.
"Most had never had more than a few sips of alcohol. Even among the students in Years 11 and 12, about three-quarters were abstinent or drank moderately on rare occasions, often with family, rather than with friends," Dr Ball said.
While factors behind the changes are complex, there is one stand-out reason teens are saying "yeah, nah" to booze.
The study said it seems social media and spending time online are replacing the drinking and partying of teens 20 years ago.
"Social life with young people about 20 years ago was about going out, going to parties, hanging out on the streets with their friends. Whereas young people today, they do socialise a lot online and when they are together it's often at one another's houses with parents there," Dr Ball told AM on Thursday.
"So it's a much more controlled environment than it was 20 years ago."
Dr Ball said a greater acceptance of diversity and more respect for individuals making their own personal choices had removed peer pressure to drink alcohol among contemporary teens.
Students involved in the study were also more aware of the health risks of drinking alcohol and were fearful of addiction. They also regarded drinking or a party lifestyle as a risk to their ambitions and an unproductive use of time and money.
"I've got better things to do than party … I'm looking out for my future here. I can't have this distraction," one student told researchers.
However, it is unclear whether the teens who aren't drinking alcohol will stay "dry" their whole lives or are delaying alcohol use and will catch up with previous generations when they reach early adulthood.
But, concerningly, Dr Ball told AM, for the young people who are drinking they are typically binge drinking.
"New Zealand evidence suggests binge drinking remains highly prevalent in early adulthood, and despite declining alcohol use in high school students, binge drinking in older adolescents remains much higher here than in other countries like Australia and the US," she said.
"Policy changes to reduce alcohol harm among young people is still an important public health priority."
