Even bartenders here have noticed a certain taming of the spring break crew.

“They are very prudish,” said Margaret Donnelly, 28, a bartender at Tattoos and Scars who has lived in Key West for four years and remembers her own student antics “They are so afraid everyone is going to take their picture and put it online. Ten years ago people were doing filthy, filthy things, but it wasn’t posted on Facebook.”

By way of example, Ms. Donnelly said, there are far fewer wet T-shirt contests — a spring break mainstay — in town today. By her count, Tattoos and Scars is the only bar that offers one, and only once a week.

Over at Sloppy Joe’s, another bartender, Ashley McCauley, said the students, who mingle with families and bikers here, are better behaved, although she has no idea why. “They are more polite and they wait their turn,” she said, with a grin. “One in 10 still acts like spring breakers, but it’s definitely calmer than when I was on spring break in 2004.”

Maybe everyone just remembers being wild and crazy back in the day, the same way that nostalgia can tinge their other memories. Or not.

Camrea Sawyer, 22, a senior at Athens Technical College, was heading to the beach with her University of Georgia friends to chill and tan her already sun-crisped body. Keenly aware of the damage a misplaced, mistimed cellphone photo or video can do, she said she is careful.