Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

Also, you typically need to be unsupervised with friends to get into drugs, something teenagers no longer have access to compared to 10-15 years ago. If we look at the social decline due to the pandemic, what made experts think these kids would bounce back? They are forever changed, and will forever be less social than other generations because they missed out on formative experiences.

Perhaps the generalized fear is not so much about "coddling", but concrete realities. I do not envy them.

[0] https://www.axios.com/2023/11/20/american-housing-market-old... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... [2] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-co... [3] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-does-medical-i...

Every generation has challenges and benefits. Framing the narrative can happen in any direction and the variance in group is bigger than the variance between.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/09/05/how-gen-z-outpaces-past-...

[1] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americans-wages-are...

[2] https://www.protectedincome.org/news/labor-day-peak-65-trade...

[3] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...

If you’re going to make a claim this bold and this counter to the prevailing narrative, you’re gonna need to cite a better source than an outbrain-riddled webpage that tells me to “watch our video to find the lede we buried”. I’m not saying this isn’t true, but extraordinary claims require good sourcing and explanation.

What do you see as the prevailing narrative? The one I see is homeownership itself, which suggests that homeownership has been seen as being hotly desirable. I strongly suspect we wouldn't have a homeownership narrative to speak of if ownership was unwanted. When something becomes unusually desirable like homeownership has, it is not unexpected to see an uptick in participation around it; in this case owning a home. Much of the urban age has been marked with the majority of the population being renters. Everyone wanting to own a home with such furor is historically unusual.

I expect homeownership has become so desirable as it has become seen as a way to build wealth. While, historically, housing only kept pace with inflation at best, real home values have risen by unfathomable amounts in the last decade or two. Which, again, attracts people willing to risk it all for a chance at some of that wealth opportunity. It would be unusual if said generational group had comparatively lower ownership rates given the "FOMO" aspect. People run away when prices are falling, not when they are rising.

Given the market we've watched, the extraordinary claim would be that Gen-Z has lower ownership rates compared to previous generations at the same age.

It mathed out about even. I decided to go with renting instead of buying, with the logic that the S&P didn’t need me to buy it a new roof every 15 years or to work in its garden every weekend.

It worked nicely too, growing the money that would otherwise have gone into mortgages and property tax, letting me take some of it out recently and buy a house with cash.

I don’t see much of this attitude in my younger friends now. But living cheap and saving does actually work.