Published February 01, 2026 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

College is supposed to be a time of learning who you are, not a proving ground for who can risk the most. But for a lot of young adults today, the lesson they are absorbing quietly and repeatedly is that excitement equals risk, speed, and chance. Not patience. Not intention. Not restraint.

The problem isn’t that college kids are irresponsible. It’s that they are being dropped into high-dopamine systems at the exact stage of life when impulse control and long-term judgment are still developing. Their brains are wired to seek novelty and reward, while the part responsible for pumping the brakes is still catching up. When gambling apps, trading platforms, and hobby ecosystems all reinforce the same message, it creates a perfect storm.

When excitement is conditioned through packs, bets, flips, or trades, the brain starts to associate relief and validation with uncertainty. Over time, that wiring doesn’t just disappear. It follows people into adulthood, into collecting, into spending, into moments when stress or comparison hits hardest. What begins as entertainment slowly becomes a coping mechanism.

What looks like freedom at that age often feels like urgency. The pressure isn’t always explicit, but it is constant. Friends talk about parlays, option trades, NIL deals, and quick wins like they are rites of passage. Social feeds turn isolated successes into a distorted baseline. Losing stays quiet. Winning is amplified. The result is a generation learning to measure self-worth through outcomes they can’t control.

This is how lives get disrupted before they ever feel started. Tuition money disappears into parlays. Credit cards are maxed out. Rent becomes an issue. Shame grows faster than awareness. And because so much of this is normalized, many don’t realize they’re spiraling until the damage feels irreversible.

Collectors MD exists because willpower alone is not enough in systems designed to remove friction. Awareness matters. Structure matters. And protecting young people from predatory mechanics is not about limiting freedom. It’s about giving their future a fighting chance.

If you’re a young adult and feeling this kind of pressure, know this: slowing down is not falling behind. And if you’re older and wiser, pay attention to what we are normalizing for the next generation. What feels harmless now can quietly become someone else’s hardest chapter later.

#CollectorsMD
You don’t lose momentum by slowing down, you lose it by chasing what was never meant to carry you forward.

—
Follow us on Instagram: @collectorsmd
Subscribe to our Newsletter & Support Group
Join The Conversation On Mantel
Read More Daily Reflections