Anderson’s High School students are above the national average of smoking/vaping teens in the United States. Out of the 109 responses in a survey we conducted it revealed that about 16% or 17.4 students who responded to the survey smoke/vape. According to an article by the CDC, AHS students are above the national average by 5.6% out of 1786 students in AHS. About 10% of teens in the United States are vapers, while 15.6% of Anderson High School teens vape.
Our poll reveals some of the many reasons why local teenagers smoke. An anonymous responder says: “I have 5 brothers, on top of school. I get very stressed and I feel that vaping is a way that I can relax”
4 other people gave a similar response by naming stress as a reason for why they smoke. Besides Stress, Smoking for fun and out of joy were some of the other often-named reasons why Teens smoke. 3 more people went even so far as to say that they are addicted to vaping.
We not only wondered about the reasons why people smoke at such a young age but also how they get introduced to it. By far the most named answer was that they got introduced to it by Friends. After that family and peers were often named way on how they were introduced to it. Some few people even gave a response like this: “[…] by random people at restrooms” or “Someone on the bus”. That shows that young people nowadays not only get introduced to it by people often surrounding them but also by Strangers that they have maybe never met before nor know their names.
And also the poll shows us that some of them started at a very young age. Some anonymous responder says: “I was 11, my friends. I didn’t get into it until 14 tho, it lasted about a year and now it just disgusts me. nicotine is gross” This response shows us that this problem is getting worse and worse because of how an 11-year-old can get introduced to smoking/vaping.
“Also, the poll showed that a lot of teens who vape or smoke get introduced to these things by seeing their parents do it, so parents should be more careful about these things.”Worldwide about 50 million underage teens smoke. 1.6% of teen smokers are from America. Bulgaria has the highest presentation of teen smokers with 32% of teen smokers. The lowest prestige of teen smokers belongs to Uzbekistan with only 0.5% of teen smokers.
