STUDY SHOWS THIRD OF S.C. TEENS UNHAPPY

USC Researchers Say Feelings Might Be Cause Of Drug, Alcohol Abuse

About one-third of S.C. teens express unhappiness with their friends and
family -- a dissatisfaction that USC researchers say may be leading to drug
and alcohol abuse. In a study of 5,032 public high school students reported
in the current issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers
Robert Valois, Scott Huebner and Keith Zullig say that 30 percent of
African-American males and females, 28 percent of white females and 26
percent of white males questioned in a 1997 survey reported that their
appraisals of family life, school experience and friendships was closer to
"terrible" than "delightful."

The survey does not conclude whether the students used drugs because they
were dissatisfied or whether they used drugs that led to their being
dissatisfied.

"That is something researchers will need to look at in the future with
long-range studies," said Zullig, a doctoral candidate in USC's School of
Public Health.

Researchers hope to find the money to continue their studies.

For now, they have no earlier study against which to compare results, and
they don't have the money lined up to perform further studies to see
whether students' perceptions change with time.

Valois, a professor in the School of Public Health, worries that the teens
expressed "narrow and neurotic" dissatisfaction that until now had seemed
to be the domain of older people.

"When the kids start to manifest the stuff that we manifest in our 40s and
50s, we're in trouble," Valois said. "I'm a little worried about this.

"I think these kids have grown up in an instant-gratification society (and
are) used to getting it yesterday (with the) Internet, escalators,
microwaves. It's unbelievable the impatience that kids manifest.

"What I'm amazed at here is it's across all race and gender groups. This
really surprises me."

Those reporting dissatisfaction with their lives showed a greater
likelihood to smoke, drink in binges and use illegal drugs.

"Cigarettes are the first red flag that goes up," Valois said.

Despite their unhappy results, the researchers stressed that one-third of
teens reported they were happy with their lives, and another third hovered
between satisfaction and a lack of it -- and could go either way, depending
on circumstances.