How to Engage Younger People in Diving?
- Thread starter KathyV
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Degenerate
Contributor
Europe is far from a paradise, but it's better than most places in many aspects (and in other aspects it's probably worse).
The general consensus on this side of the pond though is that the US is a seriously f***** up place in regards to education and health care.
Everything good comes with something bad, and vice versa, unfortunately.
I’m not trying to be political - the US has a progressive tax system as well and a large % of the population does not pay any income taxes! $50K here would net an effective tax rate of ~10-11%, but then healthcare is on the individual to obtain.That is a pretty poor way of showing how it works though.
First of all, the majority of people here in Europe don't make near 100k USD a year.
Second, the percentage you pay in taxes is based on how much you make.
I live in Sweden and make roughly the equivalent of 45-50k USD a year, that is more than enough to have a decent life here with plenty to spare for hobbies such as diving.
If I wanted to go back to Uni and study I would receive roughly 350 USD per month to do so, I could also add on student loans on top of that with pretty much zero interest and the possibility of paying it back over a very long time, we are encouraged to pursue education and it is very easily accessible.
If I have health issues I can go to the hospital and have it looked at for pennies, when I was in a motorcycle crash a couple years ago and spent a night in the ER and a few months of phys therapy my final bill amounted to nothing, because my insurance which also costs pennies covered it all.
Best part of it all?
My income tax is only 25%...
It's easier to put aside money for a hobby every month when you don't have to worry about massive loans or an unexpected hospital bill that will completely break your bank.
We have a super healthy community of divers in my area and a large majority of the divers who get certified here every year are younger than 30.
We don't have to bankrupt ourselves to get an education, stay healthy or pay for a roof over our heads and that means it's pretty easy to get into an expensive hobby like diving.
Diving is far from dying out over here, it is blossoming.
All that said, most of my friends in the 20-25 year range are simply not interested in diving as most of them are more interested in their computers or cars.
Maybe I just need to find new friends...
The point I was trying to make is that your health care is not free! You are paying for it as part of your 25% income income tax rate and the high VAT taxes in place in Europe!
Regardless, I don’t think health care costs (which are admittedly too high here) specifically are a real driver in younger folks not taking up diving!
nippurmagnum
Contributor
My daughter started diving at the age of 12, when a school friend asked her if she wanted to take an OW class with her. (I was thrilled!) She's 20 now. I started taking her along on my dive trips as soon as she got certified. She has dived with tiger sharks and manta rays in Hawaii, she's found frog fish by herself on a night dive on the Blue Heron Bridge, she's dived multiple cenotes in Mexico, she's found herself surrounded by an enormous school of barracuda in Costa Rica, and she came face to face with a giant hammerhead in Jupiter. She was so moved by an encounter with a manta that she got a tattoo of that specific manta on her hand (it's a rather discreet tattoo, but a tattoo nonetheless). Every time she comes out of the water, she says "that was the coolest thing I've ever done."
Yet after all these magical encounters, my daughter has never dived without me. She has never tried to get her friends interested in diving. As far as I know, she's never read a dive magazine. She's certainly adventurous, and this summer she drove cross country with her college roommate just to go to a concert in Colorado and hike the Rockies. But when it comes to diving, she relies completely on me to set up trips. And I have to think that it comes down to diving just being prohibitively expensive for young people, especially when any kind of travel is required. If my daughter had to separately pay for all the diving she's done, including instruction, travel, equipment, and boat charters, we'd be talking well over $20,000. Because we are a family of divers, it has cost me significantly less than that to cover her diving, since we travel together, share equipment, etc. But no way she would even begin to consider doing a dive trip on her own, until she has a significant income stream of her own, which seems many years away.
So bottom line, I think we can talk all day long about how to get young people interested in diving, but at the end of the day, the main constraint is the $$$$$$.
BTW, my little girl at 18:
Yet after all these magical encounters, my daughter has never dived without me. She has never tried to get her friends interested in diving. As far as I know, she's never read a dive magazine. She's certainly adventurous, and this summer she drove cross country with her college roommate just to go to a concert in Colorado and hike the Rockies. But when it comes to diving, she relies completely on me to set up trips. And I have to think that it comes down to diving just being prohibitively expensive for young people, especially when any kind of travel is required. If my daughter had to separately pay for all the diving she's done, including instruction, travel, equipment, and boat charters, we'd be talking well over $20,000. Because we are a family of divers, it has cost me significantly less than that to cover her diving, since we travel together, share equipment, etc. But no way she would even begin to consider doing a dive trip on her own, until she has a significant income stream of her own, which seems many years away.
So bottom line, I think we can talk all day long about how to get young people interested in diving, but at the end of the day, the main constraint is the $$$$$$.
BTW, my little girl at 18:
DBPacific
Contributor
Wow, that's an awesome picture! Good on you for taking her with you and helping her with diving. I hope y'all have many more family diving trips
That's the same experience with my two sons. I and my wife started training them since small children, and at around 6 they were already following us in "real" dives in the sea (in Sardinia).
Here Adriano (the older), at 6 years inside a small grotto at Capo Caccia, Sardinia:
They always dove only with us, never with their friends.
Now the older is almost 30, he often travels all around the world, even in places were diving is nice and easy (Thailand, for example), but he never went diving without us.
What seems difficult for them is to find friends who can dive with them. They are grown up now: diving with your children is nice, but we were expecting that, after 20, they would become autonomous. They didn't!
Cynical, said before, tongue firmly in cheek...
I-Phone 100M + UW Wifi, if we build it they will dive.
But there is some truth to it, as a father of three diving teens I know two of them would be a lot more into it if they could bring their phones.
The third is a bit of a misanthrope like his father and prefers the solitude.
I-Phone 100M + UW Wifi, if we build it they will dive.
But there is some truth to it, as a father of three diving teens I know two of them would be a lot more into it if they could bring their phones.
The third is a bit of a misanthrope like his father and prefers the solitude.
Ana
.
I didn't read the full thread but just the subject title makes me cringe. Why do we need more people underwater?
My kid learned to scuba but moved on to freediving, I figure once they get old and tired will go back to scuba, assuming the ocean hasn't been fully covered with plastic by then.
My kid learned to scuba but moved on to freediving, I figure once they get old and tired will go back to scuba, assuming the ocean hasn't been fully covered with plastic by then.
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