by Samantha Burns
How many texts have you sent today? If you are a typical teenager, the answer is most likely around 50 texts a day, or about 1,500 each month!
With today’s tech-savvy youth, cell phones are in use wherever teens go—in school, driving, watching TV, at the dinner table, and out with friends. Pew Internet & American Life Project conducted a survey in which they asked teens ages 12-17 about their cell phone use. They discovered that girls send about 80 texts a day, while boys only send about 30. Also, older teens (14-17) text more than younger teens (12-13). Other survey findings include:
54% text message daily; 38% talk on their cell phone daily; and 33% talk face-to-face daily—how might this affect the emotional quality of relationships?
15% of teens say they have received a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude image of someone they know by text (commonly known as sexting).
26% of all American teens ages 16-17 have texted while driving.
Out of schools that ban cell phones, 65% of teens still bring their phones daily, and 58% have sent a text message during class.
As a 20-something female I can relate to some of these texting habits. My parents gave me my first cell phone at age 16 for emergency use when I got a car. “Emergency use” quickly turned into “social use,” but it did come in handy for communicating with them when I was running late for curfew! For me, texting did not become popular until my freshman year of college. My dad questioned why texting was necessary—couldn’t I just pick up the phone and call my friends? I explained the practicality of sending a quick message (for example, “I’m at a loud party, can you please pick me up?”). He learned that an unlimited texting plan was the route to go, and I even got him to send his first text this past year!
I was surprised to find that some of the young teens I babysit have cell phones. It seems odd to me that they can call and text (things that represented my independence), but they still need a “babysitter”—how fast social norms change! Whatever the new, progressive fad will be, I’m sure teens will be some of the first to become proficient users.
Samantha Burns is a graduate student in the counseling program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.
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