Many people believe that they need caffeine to stay awake during the day. Whether it be during class or work, it’s a popular habit for that traps students and adults in an addictive routine.

In the form of coffee, Celsius, or various Dutch Bros drinks, caffeine has now become a normalized, even somehow romanticized form of addiction. 

Whether you’d classify caffeine addictions as an issue or not, caffeine has had an immense impact in society, and closer to home, at Wilsonville High School.

In the morning and after lunch, students show up to class with drinks, often various overly-caffeinated drinks. These drinks are typically expensive, as well as unhealthy, yet undoubtedly delicious, which makes spending on these drinks a dangerously hollow hole to fall into. Both caffeine and the price can produce immense consequences for teenagers.

Mia Winters, a sophomore, explains her thoughts by sharing, “ I think caffeine is definitely an overused way of getting through the day, and it’s expensive as well as unhealthy. “

According to the Dutch Bros website, the average medium Electric Berry Rebel drink contains one hundred and fourteen milligrams of caffeine. This is around the same amount as two espresso shots, which is one hundred and twenty eight milligrams. 

Winters responds to this statistic in saying, “ That’s insane! I think a lot of people don’t realize that.”

The impacts of caffeine addiction result in extreme jitteriness and anxiety in teens, as well as an increased dependence on it. 

Owen Feinblatt, a sophomore, elaborates on this by stating, “ I’ve started to need coffee every morning or I feel extra tired. I’ve started thinking about cutting back.”

According to the New York Times, caffeine use is linked to an increased risk of anxiety. Caffeine is a stimulant, which affects your flight or fight response, or in other terms, the sympathetic nervous system. 

With teenagers already prone to various anxiety disorders, excessive caffeine use is no remedy for tiredness and depression.