Today's teens are way less rebellious than they used to be

A young woman breaking a cigarette in half
(Image credit: Wayne Wilson/Getty Images)

American teenagers are increasingly unlikely to drink, smoke, or use illicit drugs, finds this year's edition of the University of Michigan's annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) Study, which was released Wednesday. The survey, which focuses on students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, shows a longstanding decline in cigarette and alcohol use, which continued in 2015.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.