Trinken ist für junge Briten nicht mehr cool
LONDON — When Xenia Clegg Littler and her friends were underage, their idea of fun was shopping, walking in parks and eating ice cream, not doing shots or chugging beer. She never had a drink until she was 18, the legal age in Britain, and now, at 19, she has as little interest in alcohol as ever.
“I’d rather wake up in the morning and get on with my day and achieve what I want to achieve than wake up with a massive hangover,” said Ms. Clegg Littler, an actress from West London. “I need to have control over where I am, and what I do.”
Teenage and young adult drinking has fallen drastically in recent years across Europe, and nowhere as much as in Britain. Teenagers here have gone from being among the biggest imbibers in Europe to being about average.
In 2002, according to a World Health Organization study released in late September, about 26 percent of European 15-year- olds drank alcohol at least once a week, but by 2014, that had dropped to 13 percent. The share of 15-year- olds who were regular drinkers fell from about 46 percent to about 10 percent.
A report from the University of Sheffield found similar results among minors and young adults in England. In 2002, 25 percent of people aged 8 to 12 said they had tried alcohol, but in 2016, just 4 percent had. In 2001, it found, only 12 percent of English 16- and 17-year- olds considered themselves non- drinkers; in 2016, that was up to 35 percent.
“The scale of change is such that some news outlets have labeled today’s youth as ‘ the new puritans’ and ‘generation sensible’,” the report said. Binge drinking and drunkenness by young people have also declined in Britain and across Europe .
The theories about why young Britons drink less are intriguing but unproven, said James Nicholls, of Alcohol Research UK, a nonprofit group. But he suggested that the spread of social media is one factor.
“Alcohol doesn’t play as important a role in socializing as it did in the past,” he said. “Young people can now have an active social life without leaving their house.”
Social media has made users more image- conscious, he noted, while also providing lasting documentation, in text and images, of behavior people might prefer to forget.
“There’s a trend of a greater sense of health consciousness among young people,” Mr. Nicholls added. “There’s a move away from alcohol and drugs, there’s less of a culture of intoxication.”
Alex Boote, 19, a student at University College of London, said he drank primarily at parties before turning 18, but even then, he said, it was only an occasional thing.
“I think that at that age the idea is that you drink to get drunk,” he said. “And I do think it’s still definitely considered cool when you’re young.”
But he supported the theory that social media has helped drive adolescent alcohol consumption downward, “because it gives people more ways to impress others than getting drunk at parties.”
Some young people guessed a reason for the decline is that their peers have become more likely to resort to drugs like marijuana and ecstasy. But in fact, surveys show that drug use has also become less prevalent among young people.
Mr. Nicholls pointed to another possible explanation: Their parents grew up in an era when youth drinking was more common and may still be regular drinkers.
“If it’s what your parents did,” he said, “it’s not cool.”