Hey, kids: Put down your phones. We're drinking you under the table!

Here's a sobering thought for all you baby boomers: You are now the biggest drinkers in the country.

Don't get too upset, though. It's not really your fault.

Seems members of the younger generation - teenagers and college-age Americans - are not doing their part in keeping the nation's breweries and distilleries in business.

A Monitoring the Future study at the University of Michigan found that our young'ns are simply consuming alcohol at lower rates than baby boomers (the generation born between 1946 and 1964).

One reason, according to a story in The Washington Post, is the way young lives have been rearranged by social media; having a keg party in the parking lot or behind the gymnasium is no longer a main source of entertainment.

Another reason: the success of anti-smoking campaigns.

Katherine Keys, a Columbia University professor, said that in the past experimenting with smoking (maybe at a keg party?) served as a gateway to alcohol. But among young people cigarettes aren't cool any more and that has led to a decrease in drinking.

That, of course, is a good thing, but it has left baby boomers as the last serious Happy Hour generation.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says alcohol consumption has remained relatively flat, meaning that somebody out there must be drinking more.

Well, that would be you, my baby boomer friends.

Researchers have seen a steady increase in alcohol abuse and binge drinking (women consuming four drinks and men five drinks in two hours) in the 65-plus demographic, rising from 12.5 percent to 14.9 percent between 2005 and 20014.

The finding supports the long-held view that baby boomers have always liked alcohol more than the so-called Greatest Generation that preceded them. Wasn't that kind of evident in "Mad Men?"

Institute researchers also found that the increase in drinking among older Americans is most prevalent among women and those with higher levels of education and income.

To quote the Post reporter: "When 70 is the new 50, it's still cocktail hour when the sun crosses the yardarm."

Technically, I don't qualify as a baby boomer (no, I'm not in the Greatest Generation, 1901-1924, but the Silent Generation, 1925-1942). Still, I have always identified with the baby boomers because most of my friends have been baby boomers. And my young bride, of course.

And I'll confess to being a regular martini drinker since I bartended my way through college, and even today, with a couple of edits, that Washington Post reporter could have been talking about me:

"When 78 is the new 58, it's still martini time when the clock on the wall strikes 5."

At least I now know I'm not alone.

This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Hey, kids: Put down your phones. We're drinking you under the table!."