Verkada’s 2023 Teen Vaping Survey Reveals Student Use Is On the Rise
Brandon Davito and Alana O'Grady
Schools are bearing the brunt of teen vaping. The behavior has worrying ripple effects in the classroom, impacting all teens, not just those who vape. Teen vaping has been linked to decreased student engagement, poorer academic performance and declining mental health.
To better understand teen vaping, Verkada partnered with Harris Poll to survey 2,650 Americans, including parents, high school teachers, and vaping and non-vaping teens. These survey findings, paired with aggregated insights from over 20,000 U.S. vape-detecting devices deployed by Verkada customers, provide a view into the state of teen vaping and its impact in schools across the U.S.
Key findings from Verkada's 2023 Teen Vaping Survey include:
Popularity with teens has increased. The Verkada Vape Activity Index shows a 20% year-over-year (YoY) increase in teen vaping use in the 2022-2023 academic year. More than 4 in 5 teachers (84%) and students (82%) surveyed believe there has been an increase in teen vape usage over the past 24 months.
Even teens that vape know it's a problem. Almost all teens (96%) who vape view it as a problem, with 61% of vaping teens considering themselves to be addicted and 54% wanting to quit.
Vaping hurts health and academic performance. Teens who vape are less likely to feel healthy (42%) than their non-vaping peers (67%). Vaping teens also are two times more likely to feel depressed. Teachers are noticing these impacts, with over half reporting that vaping teens lack motivation (53%) and struggle with focus (51%). Alarmingly, the vast majority of teachers (90%) find vaping in school disrupts the learning environment.
School bathrooms are prime the vaping zone. Most teens identify bathrooms as the most common vaping locations on campus (90% of non-vaping teens vs. 70% of vaping teens). Additionally, over half of the teachers surveyed (55%) report that vaping teens ask for bathroom breaks more frequently than their non-vaping counterparts.
Teachers and teens agree that additional security and technology are needed to curb vaping. School leadership is underutilizing technology that could help combat the problem, even though three-quarters of vaping teens (77%) believe it's easy to get away with vaping while at school.
For more on the 2023 Verkada Teen Vaping Survey, read the full report here, and to learn how schools can better detect and address vaping with enhanced alert features in Verkada sensors, check out our latest blog here.
