Texting: a Gateway to Poor Decisions and Extreme Behavior

by: Nicole Sloggett

Researchers claim to have found another reason not to text. According to cnn.com, a re­cent study by the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine has now connected text messaging and social networking to the bad behavior observed in some teens today. These described “bad be­haviors” include smoking, drink­ing alcohol and being sexually active.

According to this study, “hy­per-texting” is the word that is now used to define teens sending more than 120 text messages a day.

Sophomore Hanna Stevenson is already feeling the effects of her newly classified affliction. “My mom got mad that I text too much, so I got grounded from ev­erything,” said Stevenson.

A female student hides her affliction behind a seat in
the auditorium.

“Hyper-networking”, which is classified as spending three or more hours a day online social networking sites (such as the ever popular Facebook), is a similar trend.

Lead researcher in the study, Scott Frank said, “The startling results of this study suggest that when left unchecked, texting and other widely popular meth­ods of staying connected can have dangerous health affects on teenagers.”

“This should be a wake up call for parents to not only help their children stay safe by not texting and driving, but by discouraging excessive use of the cell phone or social websites in general” (cnn.com).

About twenty percent of the Mid-Western teens surveyed were found to be hyper-texters.

The study says that hyper-tex­ters are twice more likely to have tried alcohol, about three and a half times more likely to have engaged in sexual activity, forty percent more likely to smoke a cigarette, forty-one percent more likely to have used illegal drugs, fifty-five percent more likely to be in a physical fight or alterca­tion and forty-three percent more likely to become binge drinkers.

Hyper-networking was less severe but still came with a simi­lar list of outcomes. Of the teens surveyed, the study found that 11.5% have engaged in hyper- networking. According to the study research, these teens are sixty-two percent more likely to have tried a cigarette, eighty-four percent more likely to have used illicit drugs and ninety-four per­cent more likely to have been in a physical fight.

Sophomore Leah Stutsman said, “I think this makes sense, because people usually talk and act differently through texting and the internet than they would in person.”