Learning! The Kids Are Alright (and they aren't hooking up all that much)

Every once and a while an article starts circulating in my newsfeed with a title like "Hook Up Culture and the Death of Romance" or "How Tinder Killed the Relationship" or "Why You Should Be Freaking Out Over Young People Having Too Much Sex Without Enough Feelings".

I've always had two thoughts when I see these articles: 1) I really don't see any evidence in my friends-group that hooking up and emotionally shallow sex is running rampant at the expense of emotionally healthy relationships, and that 2) I also didn't know anyone who was watching Two and a Half Men, and that show was apparently the most popular show on TV for quite some time, so my sample group may be skewed.  Maybe there is a culture shift that has happened for everyone except for my friends, and the rest of the world is now obsessed with getting all the sex with none of the feelings.

Isn't in great when science comes to the rescue?  According to the New York Times' Science of Us column, research shows that if anything, earlier generations were having more casual sex than current generations, that freaking out over the sexual habits of young people has always been a thing to do, and that we all tend to think that our friends are having more sex than us which leads to a misperception of the amount of overall sex happening.

They even made a video about it: