why are there very few young divers?

[mathauck0814]

Us young guys are out there like you, Bill But we're all lucky enough to live a mile or two from a place that's interesting to dive 12 months a year.

 

[supergaijin]

Cost is not the factor. Kids drop thousands on the latest Apple products without blinking.

Scuba is like a fine wine, it takes time and experience to develop your palate. Tequila gets the job done faster and with more hilarious results. Guess which one gets the kids?

 

[toddthecat]

Outside the economy (yes, some people can't afford to cert and get their kids certified...must be some well paid folks on SB), the big obstacle we see with kids tends to be schedule. We've got one right now in the class who is hardly available on Saturday confined water sessions because he's involved in other extracurricular activities. Between school sports, ROTC, Boy/Girl Scouts, band camps, theater, etc., they sometimes end up having a fairly packed schedule.

I agree with what Jim Lapenta mentioned as well regarding the allure of diving having been watered down (no pun intended). With all the high energy stuff and the pure number of underwater tourists, diving might not appeal much to teens. Being in that stage where it's all about going over the top, impressing as many people as you can, drinking half gallons of energy drinks every day, I don't think scuba is immediately high on their lists. Time and maturity breeds interest in diving as it's not about how fast you can go or how many bones you can break at once.

Just for background, I certified at 16. Squeezed it around getting time in flying Cessna 172s. First solo flight was the day I turned 16, the earliest the FAA will let you do it. Between the two and school I didn't have much time for anything else.

---------- Post added October 4th, 2013 at 10:09 AM ----------

Cost is not the factor. Kids PARENTS drop thousands on the latest Apple products without blinking.

Fix in bold...

 

[Primalchrome]

initial cert costs are not that high. there are too many distractions and certain entities have made diving so accessible to dang near anyone that it is not as cool. It used to be a challenge and an adventure. Now with so much of it geared towards producing underwater tourists as opposed to underwater adventurers the appeal is not there for the younger crowd.

...Just stop. I've wanted to SCUBA since I was a kid and watched my Dad and Uncles suit up to go diving. I've been snorkeling lakes, rivers, quarries, and ocean since I was comfortable swimming. I had plans to get certified in my mid 20's...but after saving up enough, I ran across an opportunity to boost my career by getting a jump on some newer technologies.... I chose the long term benefits that investment offered over SCUBA. After that it was marriage....a house...kids... All requiring significant investments of time and money.

Unless you live on the coast (and even there to a degree), SCUBA is expensive. Period. I don't care if you've been doing it 4 weeks or 40 years, howling about the good old days and this dag-nabbit younger generation is silly and counter productive. SCUBA IS EXPENSIVE in both time and money.

I'm on the wrong side of 40. With the financial state of my family, I *am* the 1%. Even so, thousands of dollars for a hobby that generates a relatively small number of hours of bottom time a year is expensive in both time and money....finite resources. Most inland folks can't afford that when there are PLENTY of other activities with more bang for the buck. You have to either be fiscally irresponsible (which runs the spectrum of ages) or passionate about diving to be willing to drive 5+ hours (one way), spend a couple hundred on hotels, spend a couple hundred on a boat, and pay for your gear maintenance......for four dives and 3.5 hours of bottom time.

So unless mommy and daddy have the money or you are obsessed with diving, getting certified before you are financially stable is not an easily attainable goal. ...and no offense to NetDoc, but I hear more from younger divers on more modern methods of social exchange (ie, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc). Why would they want to spend much time on Scubaboard when you have regular posts like the one quoted that does nothing but belittle their certifications, age, and interests......?

 

[TSandM]

There are some younger divers -- we have at least three college students in our Seattle GUE community.

And it can't be entirely cost, because there are TONS of gals in their 20's who ride and compete at horse shows . . . and that's WAY more expensive than diving is.

But every outdoor activity I know is deploring the lack of younger participants. Young people don't go outside any more

 

[Primalchrome]

Cost is not the factor. Kids drop thousands on the latest Apple products without blinking.

Scuba is like a fine wine, it takes time and experience to develop your palate. Tequila gets the job done faster and with more hilarious results. Guess which one gets the kids?

I'm an Android man, myself.... That being said, the $500 I spent on my kid's BP/W and the $500 on regulators and the $500 on a computer and gear result in 25 hours of recreation a year, we'll say. Leaving maintenance and the myriad of other costs associated and putting us in a 3 year window I pay about $20 per recreational hour for his SCUBA gear.

The $0 I spent on his Droid Bionic which is used on a daily basis to communicate with me, gives him a storage medium for music/video, and allows him to play games during downtime results in a significantly higher return, wouldn't you say? And not just from a recreational sense...it's a communication device. If I'd spent the $200 for a new unit, and he gets a conservative .25 hours of recreation every day, I'm only out $0.70 per hour of recreation....plus the utility factor.

I'm sure it fluffs the ego to think of SCUBA as a fine wine that is superior to all other activities.....but at the end of the day rec SCUBA can be as simple or complex as just about any other expensive hobby.

 

[button]

I'm 33, so I'm somewhere in between young and geezer. I'd like to think younger!

There were multiple factors for why I didn't get certified earlier. For me, in the past I had a fear of deep water. I'm talking about the deep end of the pool kind of water. Maybe Jaws is to blame? (this is another thought for people who were born in the late 70s-mid 80s)

I went snorkeling in St. Thomas for the first time when I was about 25 and I found it kind of cool, but also a little terrifying. Deep water again. Over the years I continued snorkeling on vacation and generally liked it. However, I was always unnerved by the deep water. Also, I was both fascinated and terrified of sharks.

Then the trip to Australia was looming earlier this year. I spent a lot of time leading up to the trip swimming and getting comfortable in the water. I'd decided that I had to at least try diving since I was going to OZ. Descending on the line so far down was pretty scary, but after getting to pet a sea turtle, I thought it was pretty cool. Obviously I came home and got certified ASAP.

All of that said, I would never have had the money to do it earlier in my life. Now it's only because my husband and I both make a good living and don't have kids yet. That could be another problem - generally having kids can have a big impact on your time (and money) for leisure activities. For women, we're advised not to scuba dive while pregnant, so there's nearly a year off from the sport right there. And likely pregnancies are happening right around the time that they could finally afford the sport.

My husband and I don't have family that we can rely on to watch kids (when we have them, planning on that in the next year or so), so we are hoping to buddy up with some other young couples who have the same problem and watch each others kids while diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

For what it's worth, it's my understanding that many activities have the same problem of attracting younger folks... golf, skiing etc.

It's true. @5 years ago my wife and I were avid tennis players. The city responded to the huge demand by building a lot of courts, but we still had to wait in line for our turn to play. Since then the city population has grown by more than a third and no new tennis courts have been built. Yet, you can walk onto a court almost any time you want. Most are empty, and if you pass one being used, it is usually being used by older people. Golf is definitely in the same boat. The number of rounds of golf played in the U.S. has dropped precipitously in the past decade. @0 years ago there were hundreds of golf courses being built for every one that was being shut down. Today there are hundreds of courses being shut down for every course being built. The U.S.G.A is struggling to find ways to get young people to play.

Cost is not the factor. Kids drop thousands on the latest Apple products without blinking.

That may be the reason they aren't diving. They view those products as necessities. Once they have paid thousands for those "necessities," they have no money left for luxuries.

As for me, I could not have afforded scuba when I was a young adult. I also did not have the time when raising a growing family. When kids have schedules that include soccer games, baseball games, etc., it's hard to do more than that. I was ablt to get serious about scuba after my kids were out of college.

 

[mat4ov]

My wife and I both dive and we're in our 20s. Although cost may be a factor for some folks, I think there are other factors which have a bigger impact. I got certified a year ago and the only reason it waited that long is I never thought about it. I grew up 8 miles from Lake Michigan and never heard anyone talk about diving and never saw anyone diving until I was in Florida on a vacation and tried a DSD with a friend. My wife never thought about SCUBA until our first date. Had we been marketed to, we both would have been certified earlier.

 

[mdb]

There are some younger divers -- we have at least three college students in our Seattle GUE community.

And it can't be entirely cost, because there are TONS of gals in their 20's who ride and compete at horse shows . . . and that's WAY more expensive than diving is.

But every outdoor activity I know is deploring the lack of younger participants. Young people don't go outside any more

I think you have a very valid point. There was no Facebook, Twitter, interactive video games, etc. in the time when I learned to dive.

Nice to know you have some young folks learning to dive.