Quick! Cancel your spring break plans before it's too late! According to two ASU professors, you are likely to engage in "high-risk" behavior during break.
This includes such unfounded activities as (gasp!) drinking and (ee-gad!) sex.
We thought these atrocities were only rumors — merely figments of our imagination spurred on by staged MTV spring break specials and fabricated frat-boy fibs. Our peers couldn't possibly turn into raging alcoholic sex fiends for one week out of the year, could they?
Well, slather us with K-Y jelly and call us Skippy, because it's now fact.
Sevil Sonmez, associate professor of recreation management and tourism, has collaborated with her husband, Yorghos Apostolopoulos, to bring us a "study" (translation for "crap we already know, only now with numbers and technical jargon") on students' behavior during spring break.
Apostolopoulos, research associate professor of sociology, and Sonmez, are concerned with their findings, claiming that the combination of drugs, sex and alcohol during this one-week period constitutes a public health issue.
Watch out AIDS. Beware cancer. Spring break boozers and bimbos are hot on your tail!
What exactly did these ingenious scientists discover?
Apparently, students drink more than usual, have more one-night stands and, according to Sonmez, "wind up doing things they wouldn't otherwise do." She must have left out the, "except for on every weekend of the year" part.
First, we have to wonder how long Sonmez has been working at ASU, especially in recreation management and tourism. Has she not walked past the sorority dorms on a Friday night?
But never mind that; a study was still warranted because, apparently, it has always been a mystery what college students do on spring break.
Even more worrisome are the researchers' findings — not because of what they reveal, but because they are so blatantly obvious, they should be counted as statistics for everyday life, at least in college.
For instance, the pilot study (meaning there is still more work to be done) of 534 undergraduates from ASU and Penn State University in 1999 shows that 64 percent of males and 50.9 percent of females reported getting drunk over spring break.
Also, 21.1 percent of males and 4.9 percent of females reported having sex with someone the day they met the person.
These "statistics" are shocking, aren't they? While we're not quite sure who's lying about having more or less sex to cause such a huge percentage gap, we are more concerned with the gaps in the study itself. Did the researchers ask these sex maniacs if they were safe? Did they ask how many drinks they had on a normal weekend?
Eh, but what do we know? We're not "scientists" with spiffy white lab coats. We can't use scientific jargon like "situational disinhibition," the term that Sonmez coins for the erratic behavior.
Silly us, we thought it was simply called "fun."
While we all may not look forward to stripping down and slutting it up on some beach, only to return with a hangover, sunburn and STD, spring break is a welcome hiatus for us all.
Maybe the researchers should have asked the students why they feel the need to abandon all caution and let loose. Could it be due to accumulated stress from school, work, family, friends, etc.?
But that might be too logical of a thing to do for these so-called scientists.
So, watch out ASU. If you intend on getting hammered — or getting nailed — next week, prepare to become another tragic statistic ... and don't forget to send us the pictures.
