It was WAY easier to hide from everyone 30 years ago. I had friends who would outrun the police in their cars. A large percentage of young folks had fake ids. When the drinking age was 18 (or lower), kids had to just be cool to get into bars. The penalties for bars and kids were diminished and the police were not as efficient. Kids brought knives to school, and some brought guns to school. Heck, kids learned how to shoot in school. (I'm not talking about inner city scenarios, I took riflery in school). girls and boys got together. Pregnancy was the visible symptom. Kids were horrible to each other. Fights were common. Bullying even more common. It generally went unchecked.

The stuff I didn't realize until decades later -- there was lots of dark stuff, but one surprising thing in front of my eyes every day was one teacher had been habitually drunk in class and I never knew.

The partying portrayed in the media is more representative of student life in universities.

There's not much going on in high schools, 15 years old kids living at their parents who can't even buy alcohol.

I think that very much depends on where you grew up. I grew up middle of nowhere Wisconsin and we were definitely drinking and throwing parties (even with parents home) at 15. All it takes is "cool" parents that accept kids are going to drink and want to provide a safe spot for it (especially taking all the car keys), or someone's older brother who will buy the alcohol and drinking after the parents go to sleep.

As someone from a coastal city, can confirm that the same things happen back where I'm from. There's always the friend with the chill parent and the college-aged sibling who can buy. Uber, Lyft, and/or a DD make it easy enough for the kids to make sure everyone can get home safely.

>There's not much going on in high schools, 15 years old kids living at their parents who can't even buy alcohol.

I was doing hard drugs in house parties at 15 and I was one of the older ones. I had a friend who had to have his kidneys replaced by the time he was 16 and knew of 5 girls who had abortions before they were 18.

There is plenty going on in high schools.

So laws and parents are stopping teenagers from drinking and having sex? When did that happen?

Plenty of people sneaking out to get drinks or get high when I was 16 years old and in highschool (8 years ago).

Exactly. I think the parent comment may be a little misled about who's fucking and who's doing what drugs.

Though judging by peer-reviewed research [1] and falling teen pregnancy rates [2], s/he's probably right.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/trends/2015_u...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm

Recent studies have been consistent with the result that teenagers are having less sex today than they used to.

Ok, there's been more education on STDs and teen pregnancy, but even still, because of WhatsApp/Facebook messenger, a lot of what used to happen in the hallways (or at least how Hollywood depicts it) can how be "virtually" hidden.

Less than being worried about the 'why', I'm just stating the facts. These studies usually collect information via anonymous surveys, and generally there's reason to believe that these surveys are reliable.

Saying "it just happens virtually now" doesn't change the results of the studies. We aren't measuring by listening to hallway conversations, we are measuring by directly asking teens "are you sexually active?", in a safe, anonymous environment.

http://recapp.etr.org/recapp/index.cfm?fuseaction=pages.Stat...

I totally agree, for whatever reason it's decreasing. The reason I mention hallway conversations is that that's the way OP or any non-statistician would perceive these things. That's why he says

> nobody's f*ing or even dating at all.

while your link claims

> In 2015, 41% of high school students reported having sexual intercourse.

> I've seen both sides, and it's really surprising how well this unwritten system works.

Mind giving more details for someone who was last a teen more than a decade ago? :-)

My twin brother was much more popular than I was in high school. I was one of the nerds working hard to get into a good school. I never heard anything about the parties, drugs, sex, etc. going on until my senior year. My own brother rarely talked to me about what was going on.

Don't talk about it to outsiders, it's really nothing new, just easier to not accidentally slip that you were at a party someone else wasn't invited to.