From Cher’s shrieks in Clueless and Blair Waldorf’s whines in Gossip Girl to your teenage cousin’s shrill giggles, high-school girls have long been defined by their, well, girlish voices. So why do the 10th graders who eat lunch on my block sound like a group of lawyers from Staten Island?
Puberty isn’t new, but the vapes in teenage girls’ hands are. In 2021, the C.D.C. reported that young adults, ages 18 to 24, are the largest group of e-cigarette users. The problem starts even younger: according to the National Institutes of Health, 37.3 percent of high-school seniors vape. The C.D.C. claims the problem starts younger still: in 2022, 1 in 30 middle-schoolers admitted to using a vape within a 30-day period. That same year, only 1 in 100 middle-schoolers reported smoking cigarettes.
