Young people are more abstemious - why aren't we celebrating that?

Not that many moons ago the British tabloids delighted in tales of youth drunkenness, alcohol fuelled town centre carnage and the horrors of binge drinking with metronomic frequency. Yet of late those stories have slowed down somewhat.

What can be the motivating factor for not publishing such stories that prey on the public fears and are usually manna from journalistic heaven?

It's not as though we are suddenly a 'dry' nation. Young Britons still drink far more heavily than their continental counterparts, as evidenced here; http://www.espad.org/Uploads/ESPAD_reports/2011/The_2011_ESPAD_Report_FULL_2012_10_29.pdf

Yet, despite this, things are (gradually) changing. the 2011 census had some revealing statistics,

'Just 12% of 11 to 15-year olds said they had drunk alcohol in the previous week in 2011 - down from 26% a decade earlier, according to National Health Service statistics. The proportion who said they had ever drunk alcohol fell from 61% to 45% over the same period.' (sourced via BBC news).

it seems that the 'joys' of drinking are dissipating gradually. The same NHS report points out that younger people are indulging in smoking and other recreational drugs less than previous generations too.

So what can be underpinning this gradual shift to being abstemious? Well, several factors seem key. University life, for one, is much more expensive now and students are likely to not want to drink away their carefully managed funds.  Social networking and the Internet generally allow for much more social interaction and entertainment without the need for the fuel of alcohol or other stimulants.You could even argue a rising Muslim population contributes to this trend but the rise in British Muslims in no way accounts for the statistical fall in drinking and other recreational stimulants.

it may be a gradual shift and it may be on a small scale but shouldn't we as a society be celebrating? It is much better to see young people engaged in mental stimulation or entertainments than staggering forlornly and incapably around in an alcohol induced fug.

Many know from personal experience that there are few worse places to be than in a room where you're the only one sober and everybody else is a dribbling halfwit who in their own mind's eye sees themselves as a bon vivant with the elan to challenge Oscar Wilde!

So, British press - let's have the other side, let's point out the positives - and celebrate our youth for once instead of berating them all the time.