Few topics send the media into a panic like the idea of hookup culture on college campuses. But are college students actually having more sex than their parents did a generation ago? Research suggests the answer is no.

Lisa Wade, a sociologist at Occidental College, says something has changed, though: In today’s hookup culture, developing an emotional attachment to a casual sex partner is one of the biggest breaches of social norms.

For her new book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, Wade spent 5 years investigating hookup culture on American colleges and universities. In this culture, she says, there’s a dichotomy between meaningless and meaningful sex, and students have to go out of their way to “perform meaninglessness.” They have to prove that they’re not emotionally attached to their sex partners, and in fact that they care less than the other person. To read more from NPR, click here.