Tag: Texting

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Texting may be taking a toll.

This is a pretty good post on texting.  Parents you might want to check this out. Here's a glimpse:

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians andpsychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

This might be helpful or it might make you nervous for no reason.  Just thought I'd post it in case you needed more info on how far texting has come.   (Thanks YS for the heads up on it.)

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6,473 Text Messages in a month...

(Julie Zingeser and her mom)

I text a lot but not that much.  6,473 is the number of texts a 15 year old named Julie sent or received in one month.  I'm not sure that should be called an addiction, but some people would.  If you're interested check out the articles below.

The Washington Post Article reads: Julie Zingeser texts at home, at school, in the car while her mother is driving. She texts during homework, after pompon practice and as she walks the family dog. She takes her cellphone with her to bed. Every so often, the hum of a new message rouses the Rockville teen from sleep. "I would die without it," Julie, 15, says of her text life. ...Nationally, more than 75 billion text messages are sent a month, and the most avid texters are 13 to 17, say researchers. Teens with cellphones average 2,272 text messages a month, compared with 203 calls, according to the Nielsen Co. Read the full article HERE. Here's another article excerpt/debate: Sunday's Washington Post featured the story of 15-year-old Julie Zingeser, who managed to send 6,473 text messages in one month. Writer Donna St. George asks: is texting a new addiction plaguing the youth of America? ...We're just beginning to come to terms with the idea of sex addiction (and many still wonder whether it a real addiction) so while it is not surprising that some feel addicted to the internet or texting -or their "crackberries" - it is still up for debate whether this should be classified as an addiction up there with "real" issues like alcohol or drugs. But, as Block points out, we won't know the repercussions of our texting tendencies for some time: "our use of technology today amounts to a large social experiment. We still don't know how it helps us or how it hurts us." Read the full article HERE.