Further, says Steve Small, a professor of child and family studies at the University of Michigan, adolescence now lasts far longer than it did 25 years ago. Unlike their forebears, many parents today support children through the lengthy schooling needed to prepare them for success in a competitive, high-tech world. That combined with the ready availability of birth control, shifts in global morality and advances in obstetric care all have made it possible for millions to postpone the responsibilities of adulthood. They probably try, at least in part, to adopt some of the superficial markers of adult life. While preadolescents are forming the habits that will govern their health later in life, adolescents are taking risks and testing the bounds of their independence.
Young adults have more freedom to engage in promiscuous sex and other risky behaviors.
Today, confronted by AIDS and sexually transmitted bacteria that no longer surrender to antibiotics, even many adolescents recognize that what once might have seemed to be an acceptable risk might now have fatal consequences. A CDC study released last month showed that sexual activity has declined among high school students for the first time in two decades. The study, which compared surveys of more than 10,000 students each between 1991 and 1997, also found that fewer high school students report having sex with a series of partners and that more are using condoms. Hart traveled to Atlanta in August with more than a dozen other students to present a play on the impact of HIV on adolescents. The occasion was a CDC-sponsored meeting on HIV prevention and comprehensive school health.