Cracked Out and Plugged In: America's Emerging Culture of Addiction

Abstract

America is the largest most culturally diverse country in the world and is home to many competing ideologies, practices, habits, norms, and values. Diversity within the US population continues to grow at a higher pace than ever before. At the same time, the largest and most culturally diverse generation called "the millennials" enter America's workforce and universities (Howe and Strauss, 2000). Typically individuals born between 1982 and 2002 are categorized as, millennials, generation Y, or digital natives (will be used interchangeably throughout text). However vast the diversity of this generation, there remains a 21st century common denominator that exists between this diverse population. Recent U.S. data reports, 84.2% of Americans use the internet on a regular basis (The World Bank, 2014.), and 80-90% ingest caffeine regularly (Various Cited Sources). Even higher rates of usage have been observed in millennials at a 95% caffeine usage (Alison Bryant Ludden and Amy R. Wolfson, 2009) and a 93% internet usage rate according to Pew Research Center. These numbers indicate a far reaching epidemic of usage, but little is known on the affect that the relationship has on the general populous, specifically the millennial generation.