Coffee is an easy way to wake up or re-energize before beginning a long night of studying. It has become necessary, if not imperative, to drink coffee at seven a.m. before class, and then a second cup at nine p.m. when students finally get back from class and after athletics, club meetings and office hours. With one or two cups of coffee a day, students are ready for anything. Coffee has become one of the only ways to get through a busy day with the average coffee drinker, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, drinking 3.1 cups per day.

A coffee culture is evident all over America. Prior to the coffee drinking craze, cigarettes were the necessary and cool thing. It was our parents’ generation that experienced the new found knowledge of the destruction associated with smoking cigarettes due to the nicotine presence. They smoked in their teens and young adult years, and then quit the habit when it was declared unhealthy, only to switch over to caffeine. This switch made caffeine the new nicotine. Dropping one addiction only to pick up another created the coffee culture present today, allowing coffee, to become the new “cool” substance.

Coffee is now spreading its influence to younger generations. Kids now grow up consuming expensive, unhealthy, caffeine-packed coffee drinks. Companies like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, two big players in the coffee industry, are now able to engineer their drinks to obtain as much of a kid-friendly vibe as possible, while still maintaining those critical levels of caffeine. Coffee drinks like Frappuccino's and Coolatta's are more appealing to younger kids. The sugar alone makes these drinks radically unhealthy, but the amount of caffeine present is harmful. At a young age, the caffeine addiction begins. In addition to drinking coffee, it is of the utmost importance to post a picture of the coffee on Instagram. If you didn’t post a picture of your coffee, did you really drink the coffee?

Adults consuming those 3.1 cups of coffee per day are taking in 330 mg of caffeine with every cup. The Harvard School of Public Health concludes that the typical grande, or medium, cup of coffee has the amount of caffeine equivalent to five and a half Red Bulls, seven cans of diet soda, and seven cups of tea. According to E-imports, since 2005, the percentage of people in America who smoke has decreased from 20.9% to 18.1%, while the percentage of people in America that drink coffee is at 50%. The unhealthy nicotine addictions of the past are the unhealthy caffeine addictions of today. Coffee drinkers also have a place to co-exist. People can drink coffee in a shop with others, but there is nowhere for groups of people to smoke. What began as a quick way to get energized for the day is now a dependency and a key factor is social standings. Coffee drinking is “cool,” just as smoking cigarettes were “cool.” There are plenty of people still smoking; however, it is now more popular to fulfill substance dependency with coffee than cigarettes. Will you begin tomorrow morning with a smoke or a cup of coffee? Will you go somewhere to smoke with other smokers or will you get coffee with other coffee drinkers? Is caffeine the new nicotine? You tell me.

But, regardless we do love our coffee.