Introduction: Qualitative research aimed at understanding the decline in youth drinking has so far been hampered by a lack of baseline data for comparison. This New Zealand study overcomes this limitation by comparing archival qualitative data collected at the height of youth drinking (1999-2001) with contemporary data collected for this study (June-October 2022). The aim is to explore changes in the function and social meaning of alcohol use (and non-use) for two cohorts about 20 years apart.
Methods: Both archival and contemporary data were collected from 14 to 17 year old secondary school students (years 10-12) through individual and small-group/pair interviews in matched suburban co-ed schools. Interviews explored friendships, lifestyles, romantic relationships and experiences and perceptions of substance use and non-use.
Results and discussion: Comparative analysis highlighted changes that may help to explain the decline in youth drinking, including an increased value placed on personal choice and acceptance of diversity; decreased face-to-face socialising and the emergence of social media as a central feature of adolescent social life, perhaps displacing key functions of drinking and partying; increased pervasiveness of risk discourses and increased awareness of health and social risks of alcohol; and increased framing of alcohol use as a coping mechanism by both drinkers and non-drinkers.
Conclusions: Collectively, these changes appear to have shifted the social position of drinking from an almost compulsory component of adolescent social life in 1999-2001, to an optional activity that many contemporary adolescents perceive to have high risks and few benefits.
Keywords: adolescent; alcohol drinking; public health; qualitative research; social change.
© 2023 The Authors. Drug and Alcohol Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.