• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    “Roughly 4 in 10 young adults who drink alcohol report drinking alone at least once in the past year,” said lead author Kasey Creswell, associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon.

    Only 4 in 10? 6 in 10 young adults who drink alcohol never have a beer or glass of wine on a cozy evening in? I would have expected it to be the other way around.

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, wait, what? Thats what this whole report is based around? I fucking crack a beer after a hard day sometimes and just sit on my back porch - thats not problematic behavior!

      • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Yeah, the exact question they’re studying is:

        “When you used alcohol during the last year, how often did you use it in each of the following situations?…When you were alone.” Response options were 1 = “Not at all” 2 = “A few of the times” 3 = “Some of the times” 4 = “Most of the times” 5 = “Every time.”

        And they’re comparing the “not at all” responses against all of the other ones. I understand they’re analyzing data that already exists, so they don’t get to go back in time and start asking a different question in 1977 when the survey begins, but I’m not sure how useful this is to the current analysis without some qualifier like “When you had three or more drinks in one day.”

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, alcohol is bad for you. I dont think anyone should be surprised by that. So is chocolate cake and pizza and staying up late dancing and being really stressed at work because you are trying to get a promotion. But we do these things anyway because they are part of life. To optimize life away in the name of health is to put the cart before the horse. Your body is generally able to adapt to and heal from the abuse you shovel onto it and continue functioning. There are people who down handles of vodka every day and continue functioning quite normally.

          Having a beer or two on your back porch every once in a while is going to have a negligible effect on your physical and mental well being. Like, seriously, if you legitimately think that occasional, moderate consumption of alcohol, done without compulaion and having no obvious negetive effects on one’s health, day to day life, or relationships is problematic because a scientific study said “alcohol is bad for you (duh)” - then I think it is worth taking a step back and considering if you are overthinking things.

          • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
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            2 days ago

            Being stressed at work is a problem. There are articles about that as well. Generally, most people support employers who cause their employees stress being jailed.

            A chocolate cake or pizza is less bad for you than alcohol.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, sometimes I just want to savor some bourbon with tv. When I’m socializing I feel like a douche for swishing my sip and sniffing my glass. Which to be fair is pretty douchey but it brings out the subtleties

  • TomMasz@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    Socializing of all kinds is way down, a trend that started in the pandemic and has continued. Solo drinking isn’t great, obviously, but it’s understandable in our current world.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      3 days ago

      Many of these trends started before Pandemic, covid just sped shit up to the point where people noticed jiat how much the social fabric has been destroyed

      Drinking solo at home is just a consequence of the current socio economic conditions.

      Got to worm more, commute more, less time for social activities and really no energy or money either

      Going out to drink or eat is officially a luxury… 20 dollar plates and 10 per drink

      Bottle of wine or beer is 10 bucks per night

      Basic economics

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    Isn’t drinking way down in young people overall? I think the comparisons wouldn’t be one to one then.

    “There have been increases in solitary drinking among young women, in particular, over the past 25 years. Solitary drinking, or sometimes drinking when they are alone, was reported by about 40% of young adults who drank in the past year.”

    • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      40% of young adults who drank in the past year

      Yeah—it looks like it’s a trend among drinkers, so it says nothing about the overall drinking rate.

      • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        The number doesn’t say that much. Obviously it’s among drinkers, but I think the more interesting percentage would be people who only drink alone.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        That’s what I mean, wouldn’t it being a different subset of users? Maybe these are the hardcore drinkers that already existed, but were overshadowed by the huge numbers of drinkers.

  • scintilla@beehaw.org
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    3 days ago

    When actual connection and entertainment is impossible to reach for a lot of people it makes sense these numbers would go up.

  • 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    Whenever it comes to alcohol on here, the comment quality falls to TikTok levels. Only missing 🤣🤣🤣

      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Why are people who spam laughcrying face the absolute worst people in the gene pool?

        Like this space would be better if you didn’t even comment…

        • 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Either prove how emoji commenting is related to genetics or get tf out of with that rhetoric. I agree with the underlying sentiment of emoji spamming coming from annoying people, but so does social darwinist sentiment.