What's the deal with Spring Break?

Factual Questions
1

When exactly did it become a “rite of passge” for hundreds of thousands of college students to flee their campus’s in March/April and engage in mind numbing debauchery in Florida, Texas, Mexico, the Caribbean, etc? They aren’t doing anything on Spring Break that they don’t do on campus, right? So what is the appeal? Not having to clean up your own puke? The chance to have utterly pointless/possibly unsafe sex with people you may not even see the next day, let alone the rest of your life?

Maybe I’m not getting something, please tell me what I’m missing.

Oh, if this isn’t the proper forum, please move it.

2

It started in the 1980s, but God knows why. Mass psychosis?

3

I think college students have flocked to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break since the 50’s. I graduated in 82 and the trend was firmly entrenched well before.

Fun-loving, carefree…beach. That sells it. Who wouldn’t want to spend a week on the beach? Well… I would’nt want to be there when the masses are there. When I was a college student, I was in the mix and lovin it.