New students will be showing up on college campuses all across the country in the next few weeks, which means it's time for the annual "kids these days" reflections on the character of the new freshmen. Apparently, they don't know all kinds of important stuff, but they don't drink as much as they used to:
(Figure from The American Freshman - National Norms for 2005, sent to me in an all-faculty email. It's not clear to me whether "in the past year" refers to their first year in college, or their last year in high school, but I don't care enough to pay $25 to read the report...)
Make of those what you will.
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I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the difference is actually in alcohol consumption. I think the rise of "alcopops" (or "malternatives" ) - the various Barardi Silver/Skyy Blue/Mike's Hard Lemonade/etc - has taken a big chunk out of the youth drinking market, which was previously drinking cheap beer. The mainstream beer industry is feeling kind of screwed - they got into that game (making no-flavor malt beverages to be flavored and rebranded) to try and win back some of the market share they were losing to hard liquor, but instead they've created a branding gateway that bypasses beer entirely.
A generation that has neither known nor studied the costs of Great Evil will nonetheless become expert - if not FOB organized events then offhandedly every 15 April. The future has arrived accompanied by its bar tab. Last tag!
In 1981, 82 the drinking age was 18 in many states, now it is 21 everywhere or almost everywhere. That would be a major reason kids won't admit to drinking at that age now.