In 1997, 36.4 percent of teenagers smoked. Now, 15.7 percent do. That’s a 57 percent decline.
Teenagers today are 38 percent less likely to binge drink than you and your classmates were. In fact, they’re 16 percent less likely to have ever tried alcohol at all.
47 percent fewer teen girls have babies now compared to you and your high school classmates. Teens today are also 22 percent less likely to have had sex before they turned 13.
Techdirt also has a writeup.
This brings a question that folks like the EFF, ACLU, Video Games Voter Network etc have been saying for two decades now. If violent media creates violent kids, where are all the violent kids at?
The world is getting safer and less violent. Fewer people are dying before puberty, more people are living long enough to at least think about retiring. And the kids coming in after me are smarter, more cynical, more skeptical, and this makes me happy.