Underage Drinking Futurism

Underage Drinking: The Futuristic Considerations

Introduction

Alcohol continues to be a major problem for adolescents in the United States. Alcohol remains the substance used by majority of youth (Windle). Therefore, how can we decrease the negative act of underage drinking in the United States? According to Christina Burke, senior research assistant in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, “Studies have demonstrated that alcohol exposure during adolescence and young adulthood can significantly interfere with normal brain development and function” (Tapert et al.). With alcohol use, the future of these teenagers is at risk. Since brain development and growth is still occuring, it will deplete their full potential

Scientists

Drinking has an extremely harmful effect on the brain and the body. According to Susan Tapert, a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry at the University California San Diego, “Drinking has an impact on long-term brain function. When alcohol is consumed by ungerage teenagers, memory function, attention, visuospatial skills, and executive functioning are altered. This not only affects them in the moment, but can have deleterious effects on neuropsychological functioning” (Tapert, et al.). When analyzing Tapert’s findings, we see a similarity to Sandra A. Brown’s research from her experiment, “Neurocognitive Functioning of Adolescents”, a peer reviewed source, supporting it stating, “Alcohol use was associated with poorer performance on verbal and nonverbal

To properly protect the futures of teenagers, there needs to be a way to fully educate the teenagers and parents about the extreme dangers of ungerage drinking, such as public speaking or have it addressed in the news. It is very hard to decrease it when there are bigger problems that the United States are dealing with, parents are not aware that their kids are drinking, and drinking is seen as being cool. The news and media can explain the long lasting negative effects on health and how dangerous it is. Even though parents are not aware if their child is drinking or not, they should become educated on its dangers so that when they do start drinking, they will know that they should be careful and not push themselves too far. Hopefully, when the dangers of drinking on the body are addressed, they will see that drinking is not cool and it can negatively affect their future. Although these solutions do not solve every problems, parents still allow their kids to drink, and kids ignore the dangers since they think they can handle it, educating the public will be a positive way to start to solve the issue to this