In the 21st century, school students in the US are being tattooed like their parents. The rise of the internet and the proliferation of mass-market products made tattoos inks an all too common choice for consumers.
“For a lot of teenagers, a tattoo is the last form of entertainment left,” says Dr. James M. Hilderback, a researcher at the University of California Los Angeles, where he has been examining the impact of the electronic devices on teens.
In the past decade, tattooing’s popularity in schools has grown by leaps and bounds.
“There are a whole new crop of students, and we need to get on top of them,” says Dr. John Yarnell, chief executive officer of Stages Tattoo. “The schools are just kind of taking on the tradition. With the Internet, you just kind of get to your friends and say, ‘You’re in, you’re online. You’re a part of the digital community.'”
According to one estimate, more teens are getting tattooed than ever before—the trend is so extreme that some tattoo shops are selling tattoos online.
“It really is the perfect opportunity for us to market, get into the market with tattoos,” says J.T. Thomas, founder and owner of The Bizarre Tattoo Company.
While tattooing schools are popping up all around the country, the trend may eventually spread across the continental US. According to a study published last week in the journal Pediatrics, kids at high schools with a tattoo industry are 4.5 times more likely to be interested in getting tattoos in college than their peers with no tattoo history.
In many schools, tattooing is the latest fad on a list of trendy trends among teens.
In recent years, teens have become obsessed with smartphones. Smartphone culture has been a significant factor in the explosion of mobile texting and gaming, says David Krieger, who heads the marketing department for the Tattoo Museum in San Diego. Mobile devices and high school students have an uncanny ability to connect. Krieger, who has witnessed the rise of texting at school, says when teens see each other in a game or during class, text messaging is unavoidable.
“Teens think they’re in love all the time,” says Dr. Thomas. “They can’t get enough of a certain person they’re with or who they’re with. They need to be in constant contact in real life or they get lonely.”
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