SPRING BREAKS

A contemporary ritual with reminiscences in classic celebrations of the rites of spring, spring break offers North American students the self-declared right to a one-week vacation, typically in warm and sunny locales. With ramifications in the areas of tourism, law enforcement, and social problems, spring break is the annual media-enhanced migration of mostly college students to the sunand-fun hot spots. In fact, like migrating birds, students uniformly flock to the same places each year. Panama City, Florida; South Padre Island, Texas; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Cancun, Mexico, have become, at least during the month of March, synonymous with a free-spirited mass frolic, chiefly expressed through tiny bikinis, sweaty muscles, and beer.

Throughout its history, spring break has developed under the same influences as other forms of contemporary tourism—the commercialization of leisure, an entitlement-to-play attitude emerging from industrialization, rising discretionary income, and technological advances. Most singularly, perhaps, has been the influence of a "youth" social class established and recognized in the 1940s. As the American sociologist Talcott Parsons put it in his 1962 Essays in Sociological Theory, the term "youth culture" described a juvenile fixation on consumption and a hedonistic denial of responsibility, an inversion of the adult roles of routinized work and family duties. Thus, the youth culture has been both a rebellion against received culture and authority from parents, and an affirmation of the consumerist values of parents. All this is reflected in the contemporary expression of spring break.

Student folklore, on the other hand, maintains that spring break originated with the ancient Greeks. As winter would lessen its chilling grip, the thoughts of Athens's youth turned to rejuvenation and regeneration. Endorsed particularly by Socrates, so goes the story, young people were encouraged to welcome spring by venting their ingrained urges. Later, after enduring the prohibitions of the Middle Ages, Victorian traditions, and the Great Depression, the idea of a serious party in the spring resurfaced with vigor in the 1960s era of the baby boomers. Along with this rebirth was the 1970s rise of Florida—Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach in particular—with its warm weather, beautiful beaches, and relatively close proximity to a large number of college students, as the spring break Mecca. By the 1980s, glorification of the overconsumption of sex, sun, and alcohol was firmly established. And in the 1990s, the introduction of super clubs, MTV broadcasts from the beach, and corporate sponsors of concerts, shows, contests, and giveaways had created a mega-industry.

For example, each year approximately 1.5 million U.S. and Canadian students participate in a spring break vacation. In 2001, over 100,000 youths traveled to Cancun over their spring break, and, according to visitor's bureau surveys, spring break lures about 115,000 people to South Padre (in spite of a moratorium on advertising itself as a spring break destination) and 175,000 to Daytona Beach annually. Perhaps the single best example of age-cohort marketing, today's college campuses are deluged with e-mails, advertisements, and direct mailings showing photos of scantily clad women and wild partying—seducing students with "30 hours of free drinks."

Spring break is good business, translating into a significant boost for local economies—an estimated $60 million in direct expenditures in the case of South Padre, and $70 million for Daytona Beach. Yet, this mega-industry also has mega-costs. Panama City Beach must annually handle the expense of collecting and disposing 206,000 extra pounds of garbage. Traffic along State Road A1A in Daytona Beach moves at four miles per hour for weeks. As well, the American Academy of Dermatology estimates that overexposure to the sun by spring breakers results in 44,200 new cases of melanoma each year.

The most significant cost associated with the spring break ritual, however, is without a doubt injuries and deaths associated with the consumption of harmful substances. For example, "Scoop"—an Ecstasy-like and potentially lethal rave drink of choice—has made inroads into the spring break culture. However, alcohol—particularly beer—is the most widely consumed substance. Annually, college students spend about $5.5 billion on alcoholic beverages—about $446 per student. The Journal of American College Health in 1998 reported that during spring break the average man consumes eighteen drinks per day, and the average woman consumes ten drinks per day. To help maintain these figures, brewers target spring break locales with sponsored parties and free clothing. Indeed, one of the attractions of Mexican locations, such as Cancun, is the tolerance for underage drinking.

Spring break behavior is fenced into just this immediate time. Students feel they are in a place far from campus and home where they don't know a lot of people and, even better, won't ever have to see them again. According to a 2002 survey by the American Medical Association, a majority of parents are completely unaware of the activities of their children during spring break.

Yet, these students readily admit the drinking and revelry often get out of hand, occasionally with disastrous consequences. The resulting drunkenness, alcohol poisoning, accidents, sexual assault, and unprotected casual sex can result in fatal forms of fun. Across North American college campuses there has been a swell of programs whose goal is reducing underage and binge drinking among students. For example, the twenty-three-campus California State University has a system-wide alcohol policy focusing on education and restriction of alcohol advertisements on campus. Colleges and universities have also increasingly attempted to counterbalance spring break specific problems by promoting "alternative" spring breaks for their students. For example, some students use their spring break for community service, special courses, or back-road adventures. For example, Stanford University's Alternative Spring Break Program offers students a weeklong vacation of volunteering and learning about other communities. Students from Southern Methodist University in Texas are fanning out to cities across the country to do community service during their spring break. As well, some spring break students travel northward for the week and focus on snow skiing and snowboarding instead of sun and sand.

See also: Beaches, Hook-Ups, Raves/Raving, Teenage Leisure Trends, Vacations, Wilding

BIBLIOGRPAHY

Amada, Gerald. Mental Health and Student Conduct Issues on the College Campus: A Reading. Asheville, N.C.: College Administration Publications, 2001.

Aron, Cindy S. Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Cross, Gary. A Social History of Leisure Since 1600. State College, Pa.: Venture Publishing, 1990.

Russell, Ruth V. Pastimes: The Context of Contemporary Leisure. 2d edition. Champaign, Ill.: Sagamore, 2002.

Ruth V. Russell