W Generation Millennidull ..or are they the wisest teens ever?
BY AMY-CLARE MARTIN HEN Adam Ant released Goody Two Shoes, he was 36 years before his time. The 1982 song featured the line, “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?” – which is a perfect question for today’s 18-year-olds, as a new study has revealed.
That’s because millennials are shunning drinking and smoking in favour of spending more time online. No wonder they’re being dubbed Generation Sensible.
Either way, those born in the year 2000 are healthier and are expected to live longer than previous generations, but spend less time socialising, figures from the Office of National Statistics show.
About half of 18 to 24-year-olds reported drinking alcohol in the week before the survey, while less than a quarter smoke.
This is compared to Home Office research in 1999, which showed four out of five had been drinking in the previous week.
In 2005, 32 per cent of young people reported binge drinking in the past week, but this dropped to less than 25 per cent by 2017.
Binge drinking is defined as a man drinking eight units and a woman having six units.
Today’s 18-year-olds also spend half an hour less socialising each day than those at the start of the millennium, with more time devoted to computers and gaming.
Time spent with friends at pubs and cafes fell by 27 minutes a day from 2000-01 to 2014-15.
In the same period, time spent on devices, including using social media, went up by 17 minutes a day.
And time spent gaming, including computer games, rose by 31 minutes per day.
Today’s sensible teenagers are also more health conscious, with an extra eight minutes spent on sport and exercise each day.
The new generation can expect to live up to two years longer than those who were 18 in 2000, with women now expected to reach their early 90s. And the birth rate for women aged 18 has dropped by 58 per cent from 2000 to 2016.
By 2016, the average age of a mother in England was 29. This generation are also marrying later.
Only 683 people aged 18 tied the knot in the UK in 2015, down from 3693 people in 2000.
Hugh Stickland, of the ONS, said: “This analysis shines a light on what it’s like to be 18 in 2018.
“Young people spend more time computing and gaming, and the amount of time they spend socialising has decreased since the millennium.
“They are also the healthiest age group, smoking and drinking less than they did at the turn of the century.”