Written by A new study has shown that American teenagers send more than 100 text messages every day, overtaking voice calls, social networking and face to face conversations as the most common type of communication.
The study showed that 75% of people aged between 12 and 17 owned a mobile phone and that the average teenager sends a whopping 1,500 text messages every month.
Girls tend to text far more than boys with girls sending an average of 80 text messages a day, compared with just 30 for boys. Older girls, aged 14 to 17 years, can send up to a massive 3,000 messages every month.
58% of teenagers admitted that they send cheeky messages during their classes, despite mobile phones being banned in classrooms, and 65% bring their phones to school even when they are completely banned.
Amanda Lenhart, one of the researchers, said: “Texting is now the central hub of communication in the lives of teens today, and it has really skyrocketed in the last 18 months.”
“We’ve kind of hit a tipping point where now teens expect other teens to respond to text messaging and to be available. There is definitely an element of text messaging that fits so seamlessly into their lives.” she added.
As well as having their phones with them during the daytime, a whopping 85% of teens admitted that they slept with or next to their phones.
It would be interesting to see if this also applies to teenagers in the UK, and no doubt studies will arise wondering about the social implications of text messaging, if it’s replacing actual conversation it could certainly be considered a bit troublesome!
