In a surprising finding, a study in the United Kingdom has found that hacking is a more popular pastime among teens than smoking or having sex.

The numbers come from the University College London, which surveyed 11,000 14-year-olds in the U.K. as part of the Millennium Cohort Study that asked them information about what they did in their spare time.

One in 20, or five percent, of those surveyed said they had hacked or attempted to hack a computer in the last year, while three percent said they smoked regularly and two percent said they had engaged in sexual intercourse. Hacking also beat out other illegal activities, with four percent admitting to being involved in vandalism and two percent to being part of a gang. Only one percent said they had stolen something from another person.

The nature of the hacking was not spelled out, but just under 1 percent admitted to having intentionally sent a virus in the last year, indicating that at least some 14-year-olds were taking their cybercrime to more serious levels.

According to The Evening Standard, the figures aren’t entirely surprising. A report from the U.K. National Cyber Crime Unit investigations had previously found that the average age of hackers arrested was 17, with almost two-thirds of hackers in the country having begun hacking before age 16.

Boys were more likely to have engaged in hacking, with six percent of respondents saying they would hack a computer compared with four percent of girls.

Proving that some things don’t change, the only activity that rated higher than hacking in the survey was alcohol, with 10 percent of respondents admitted binge-drinking, that is having had more than five alcoholic drinks in one session. Nearly half admitted having drunk alcoholic beverages in the last year.

Photo: U.S. Airforce/public domain