72% of US teens are daily texters: Study

For US teens, texting beats social networking by far for daily communication with peers, according to a Pew/Internet Project report released today. Nearly three-quarters (72%, up from 51% in 2006) of US teens send text messages daily, and 88% of teen cellphone users do. "Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month," Pew says. I compared that "mere" 1/3 sending 3,000+ texts a month to Nielsen's latest numbers, showing all US teen cellphone users sending and receiving 3,146, thinking Pew's sounded more "reasonable." But note that Nielsen's referring to sending or receiving, not just sending. So Pew's 3,000+ figure is pretty amazing. The sending plus receiving figure for one in three teens could be double, or 6,000, since a single text message is usually just part of a conversation or string of messages.

Pew seems to be saying that girls 14-17 own the space: That "entire cohort" averages 100 messages a day (sending), compared to the third of all teen cellphone users. "The youngest teen boys are the most resistant to texting – averaging 20 messages per day," Pew found. As for texting vs. other forms of communication (we now need to make distinctions between purely communicating and entertainment or socializing, where digital devices are concerned): Though texting is No. 1 for communicating with peers, voice calls are No. 1 for doing so with their parents. Where social networking's concerned, Pew says 25% of all teens contact their friends daily via social network site, vs. 54% of all teens who do so via texting. For 15-year-olds, the preferred communication methods with friends fall in this order: texting (54%), talk face-to-face (42%), calling on a cellphone (41%), social network site (40%, and SNSs have features like IM and email), calling via landline (37%), instant messaging (33%), and email (12%).

And communication is obviously not the all of it. Pew reports that teens use cellphones to (good and neutral activities first): "Share stories and photos ... entertain themselves when they are bored (just like adults) ... micro-coordinate their schedules and face-to-face gatherings ... go online to browse, participate in social networks, and check their emails." Some also use cellphones to "cheat on tests and skirt rules at school and with their parents ... send sexts.... Others are sleeping with buzzing phones under their pillows, and some are using their phones to place calls and text while driving." There's so much more to this report, which draws on both a survey and focus groups (quantitative and qualitative information), including chapters on how parents and schools regulate cellphone use, attitudes toward cellphones, and the fact that 84% of teen cellphone users had slept with their phones on or right next to their beds. For some that's because it's their alarm clock, but staying in touch appears to be the biggest reason: "Teens who use their cell phones to text are 42% more likely to sleep with their phones than cell-owning teens who do not text," Pew says. Here's the Washington Post's coverage.

Haiti: Texting, social Web connecting survivors with help

Struggling earthquake survivors in Haiti can now text for help. "Countless volunteers" receiving the messages, the US State Department, the Pentagon, aid organizations, and Haiti's leading cellphone carrier make up an emergency contact network for Haitians seeking aid, the New York Times reports. The story leads with the experience of Coast Guard volunteer and Chicago tech firm owner Ryan Bank, who told the Times he's received more than 18,000 messages. Some volunteers monitor Facebook and Twitter postings for information indicating where supplies are needed. Messages through the network have "helped identify a tent city that the American military and relief workers were previously unaware of." To get the word out, the mobile carrier in Haiti sent "the distress code number – 4636 – to every cellphone on the Haitian network. Word of the program also went out on local Haitian radio stations." Text messaging was still possible even with damage done from fallen cell towers.

How much teens text: Latest data

US 13-to-17-year-olds send or receive "an average of 3,146 texts a month each" – an average of 10 text messages an hour for every hour they're not either sleeping or in school, MarketingVox.com reports, citing the latest Nielsen figures. For 9-to-12-year-olds, the average is 1,146 texts a month or four an hour. The teen figure was for third quarter 2009, the tween one for the fourth quarter. Compare those youth numbers to the average number of monthly texts for all mobile users: 500. As for methodology, in its blog post about these findings, Nielsen reports that it "analyzes more than 40,000 mobile bills every month to determine what consumers actually are spending their money on."

66% of teens text, only 8% tweet: Study

Though adult blogging remains steady, teen blogging has decreased by half since 2006 – from 28% of teens then to 14% now, according to a Pew/Internet report released yesterday. Eleven percent of Americans 30+ maintain a personal blog right now, Pew adds. Blogging by 18-29-year-olds has decreased, too, but not by quite as much: from 24% of that age group in 2007 to 15% now. Social networking continues to grow – 73% of teens use social sites now (compared to 47% of adults), up from 55% in 2006 and 65% last February – but Twitter use among teens is not high. Only 8% of 12-to-17-year-old Net users use Twitter, compared to about a third of 18-to-29-year-olds (the age group that uses Twitter the most). Compare that teen Twitter use to virtual worlds (about the same) and texting (a whopping 66%). Moving from media to devices: 75% of teens and 93% of 18-to-29-year-olds have cellphones. It's not surprising to parents, I think, when Pew says that, "in the past five years, cellphone ownership has become mainstream among even the youngest teens." That's where the biggest growth has been: "Fully 58% of 12-year-olds now own a cellphone, up from just 18% of such teens as recently as 2004."

'Sext education': US- and Canada-based resources

Citing new US figures showing that two-thirds of 8-to-18-year-olds own cellphones, Canada's CBC points to a new Web site designed to educate people about texting – textED.ca – "set up by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, in partnership with Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association." The CBC says it includes "sext ed," but I don't see much in the site specifically about photo-sharing, and there – slightly frustratingly – isn't a search box in the site that allowed me to search for "sext ed." But for parents there's an "acronictionary" with abbreviations and acronyms often used in text messages, and for kids there's a "Need help now" form, which they can fill out and which promises to get back to senders within 24 hours. From here in the US, PC Magazine's John Dvorak offers 7 reputation-protection tips that "can save your kids – and you – from a lifetime of online embarrassment" (offline too!). They cover everything from Twitter and Facebook to blogging and vlogging to video chat on Stickam (take special note of that last genre, parents – not a good place for kids in online stealth mode). See also ConnectSafely.org's "sext ed" and "Sexting: New study & the 'Truth or Dare' scenario." As for anti-sexting legislation, here's a commentary from Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use offering ways to adjust laws so as to help rather than harm youth.

[The new US data the CBC refers to is from the just-released Kaiser Family Foundation study I blogged about and linked to in "Major study on youth & media: Let's take a closer look."]

Texting good 4 spelling & reading: Study

In a study of students' texting habits, the British Academy British Academy found no support for the "negative media and public speculation" around young people's texting. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports, "the kids who used more 'textisms' – abbreviations such as “plz” (please) and “l8ter” (later) [shouldn't that be "l8er"?] – showed higher scores on some spelling, phonetics, reading comprehension and other English language competency tests." The study's authors are Coventry University psychology Profs. Beverly Plester and Clare Wood. In three separate studies of groups of 60-90 8-to-12-year-olds, they found, among other things, that 1) "the proportions of textisms that kids used in their sentence translations was positively linked to verbal reasoning; the more textspeak kids used, the higher their test scores" and 2) "the younger the age at which the kids had received mobile phones, the better their ability to read words and identify patterns of sound in speech." [See also "Major study on youth & media: Let's take a closer look"]

Social Web's help for Haiti

With emails from President Obama, tweets in Twitter, and cellphones sending “Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief," fixed and mobile social media are raising millions for Haiti earthquake relief. Yesterday (1/14) may've been "the biggest day for mobile giving to date, CNET reports, adding that Facebook said its users "have been posting more than 1,500 status updates a minute containing the word Haiti." The New York Times reports today that "the American Red Cross, which is working with a mobile donations firm called mGive, said Thursday that it had raised more than $5 million this way" and "nearly $35 million" in general by Thursday night, "surpassing the amounts it received in the same time period after Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami." This is an important media story for classroom and dinner-table discussion, but parents and teachers will also appreciate this "teachable moment" for new media literacy. Because, unfortunately, "with any urgent call for donations often comes a rash of scams that can pilfer cash or result in identity theft," another CNET post warns. The article offers advice for applying critical thinking to texted, posted, and tweeted solicitations – and so does the FBI.

Social lives, media in their pockets

If our kids text, 80% of us do too, according to The Nielsen Company. Nielsen doesn't say why, but we all know: Our kids "hear" us better when we text them, and – besides – it's fun to text with them! Here's some more interesting cellphone data from Nielsen:

Phone owners are getting younger: Last year kids typically got their first phone at age 10.1; by the beginning of this year 2009, the phone ownership age "was down to 9.7." Same for borrowing: In 2008, the average age when kids started to borrow a cell phone was 8.6 years"; now it's 8.

How they use phones: 66% of tween phone owners took photos with their phones in the past year; half played pre-installed games; 40% activated the speakerphone feature; 28% filmed a video clip; 24% listened to tunes. We've already seen this reported, but "the average 13-17 year old sends more than 2,000 text messages per month."

Younger phone owners: more than half of 8-year-old owners "used their cell to send text messages in the last 12 months. "That figure soared to 81% for 12-year-old mobile users," with "the vast majority" (90%) of those texts going to friends and family."

Parental controls: More than half of cellphone users' parents don't use parental controls. Among the minority who do, "20% limit the number of calls, texts or instant messages, followed by download limits (17%), talk time or voice minute allocations (16%), mobile website access limits (15%), locator services and restricted in/outgoing number access (13% each), time of day restrictions (11%), and alerts to unauthorized texts, IMs or callers (6% each); 60% of parents "forbid downloads onto their children’s phone for financial and security reasons."

For parents' own views, see also a piece in the Washington Post about when texting becomes nagging; "When Dad banned text messaging" in a New York Times blog; and another mom's view of her kids' texting at TMCnet.com.

Huge growth in texting, mobile Web access

Just in the first half of this year, people sent 740 billion text messages over the US cellphone networks, according to CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association. That's 4.1 billion a day and nearly double the number (385 billion) for the first half of 2008. Photo and other media sharing has grown even more. CTIA's semi-annual survey found that "more than 10.3 billion MMS messages were reported for the first half of 2009, up from 4.7 billion in mid-year 2008." That spelled a 31% increase in revenue from data (non-voice) for the industry over the first half of 2008. In fact, there's growth every which way you look. Users: There were 276 million cellphone users this past January through June, up 14 million. Minutes: 1.1 trillion, or 6.4 billion a day. Revenues: $76 billion for the wireless industry in those six months. ["MMS" stands for "multimedia message service" and "SMS" for "short message service," now just "texting."] Here's Washington tech pundit Adam Thierer's blog post on the survey. [See also "Teen drivers: Take a 'text stop'" and "House rules for texting."]

Web access over mobile phones is showing big growth, too – in fact, the mobile Web is overtaking the fixed one, internationally. "More people are using cell phones and other portable devices for high-speed Web access than are signing up for fixed line [computer] subscriptions to the Net," according to report from the International Telecommunications Union cited in the San Jose Mercury News. It projects 600 million mobile broadband subscriptions by the end of this year, compared to 500 million "fixed line subscriptions," a 50% increase for mobile over the past year.

Cellphone: A kid's other computer

If they don't already, parents need to know that owning a cellphone is more and more like owning a computer. Because, though they fit in zippered little compartments in our kids' backpacks, 3G phones or "smart phones" are full-blown Net-connected computers (unless you have your mobile carrier turn off Web browsing). So they're entertainment and social devices and a way for scammers to trick you into subscribing to this or that long-term "service" as much as a way for Mom or Dad to keep tabs on kids' whereabouts – and "about half" of US kids aged 12+ have cellphones, reports Alina Tugend in the New York Times, citing Yankee Group research (for better figures, see my later post with Pew/Internet's latest on teen cellphone ownership). "Many parents – and I include myself in this category," Alina writes, "keep a (somewhat) careful eye on television, computer and video game use. But we didn’t really take into account cellphones, since at least until recently, phones were intended, well, pretty much for calling people." She offers some advice from a pediatrician on family cellphone policy, including the most basic tip that limits need to be set. When things slide a bit, here's a solution Tugend, a mom herself, has arrived at: "Next time I observe my children overly focused on their cells, I’ll send them a text message: 'Put the phone away'." [See also "House rules for teen texting."]

Texting & teen sleep deprivation

Sleep specialists are concerned about teens keeping cellphones on all night, right by their beds and under their pillows – because of "how important sleep is to their developing brains," the Charlotte Observer reports. It tells of a 17-year-old in California was getting "near-debilitating migraine headaches throughout the day." The first thing her doctor checked was her eyes. No problem. Then a CAT scan. "It came back clear." He was stumped. What finally came to light was that she slept with her phone at bedside "just in case a friend called or text-messaged her in the middle of the night. Sometimes, she said, she would receive calls or messages as late as 3 a.m. – and she would wake right up to call or text right back." The article doesn't say, but I hope the prescription was that the teen turn off her phone at night. Other problems specialists cite as resulting from sleep deprivation: "impaired concentration, weakened immune systems, crankiness, increased use of nicotine or caffeine and hyperactive behavior often misconstrued as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder." And one other added by Dr. Carolyn Hart at the Presbyterian Center for Sleep Disorders: a decline in school performance and risky driving while drowsy. [See also "House rules for teen texting."]

Texting + driving = bad news: Study

We all instinctively knew this, but now data has finally been released: People who text while driving are 23 times more likely to crash than "nondistracted drivers," CNET reports, citing new findings from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. But the researchers didn't just look at texting. Mounting cameras inside vehicles, "they studied where drivers' eyes were looking as they did various things, such as texting, dialing a cell phone, talking on a phone, and reaching for an object. Not surprisingly, the numbers showed that the tasks that took people's eyes off the road caused the greatest amount of danger." The average eyes-off-the-road time for texting was 4.6 seconds – time enough to "travel the length of a football field at 55 mph." Talking on a cellphone, on the other hand, presumably with eyes on the road, increased the chance of crashing 1.3 times - that's talking, not dialing, of course. See CNET for more interesting findings. Here's the New York Times's coverage.

Cellphones in class: New study on cheating

On average, US teens send and receive more than 2,000 text messages a month, according to Nielsen figures, and a new study sponsored by Common Sense Media found that - despite many school policies to the contrary - a quarter of those texts are sent and received during class! Common Sense zoomed in on the opportunities this represents for cheating on texts, pointing to these key findings: 26% of students surveyed have stored notes on a cellphone to access during a test, 41% of the students surveyed say doing so is cheating and a 'serious offense'," and 23% don't think it's cheating; 25% of students have texted friends about answers during tests, 45% says this is "cheating and a serious offense," and 20% say it’s not cheating at all; 36% "say that downloading a paper from the Internet to turn in is not a serious cheating offense" and 19% say it isn’t cheating at all. "The results of this poll show a great need for a national discussion on digital ethics," Common Sense says in its press release. Hear, hear! There is no question a national discussion on digital ethics is needed - has been needed for some time - but not just with regard to cheating and plagiarism. What needs to be understood nationwide (worldwide, actually) is that ethics and the respect and civility associated therewith is protective as well. Ethics is protective of individuals and the communities - online communities and school communities - in which they function. And not just legally protective. Ethics, civility, respect, and citizenship mitigate aggression toward and disrespect for individual and collective rights and responsibilities. That is another national discussion we need to have, I feel.

But back to the important academics question. The other side of this needing to be addressed is what testing should look like in the digital age. As my ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid writes in the San Jose Mercury News today, "Cheating is cheating regardless of whether you use technology or old-fashioned paper notes. But in addition to admonishing kids about why it's wrong to cheat, perhaps it's also time to rethink what it means to evaluate students in the age of the Internet and omnipresent mobile devices." Here's the San Francisco Chronicle on the Common Sense study, mentioning the organization's great new work in media literacy). [Here's my earlier post on the Nielsen teen-texting figure.]

Texting at meals: Usually *really* not cool

"Husbands, wives, children and dinner guests who would never be so rude as to talk on a phone at the family table seem to think it’s perfectly fine to text," the New York Times reports. A therapist told the Times that texting while eating has become a major topic between spouses in marital counseling. It's as if the issue - for old and young cellphone users alike - is sound levels rather than attention to the people present. One dad admitted that, though he never texted at the table, he did read emails. "A few months ago, a family meeting was convened. The ... 7-year-old twin daughters made their feelings known. Their father agreed to cease using his iPhone during dinner" and told the Times he was 95% there. The Times adds that, among adults, men are the worst mealtime phone users, while among teens, girls are). [See also "House rules for teen texting" and "Cellphone etiquette."]

When does texting get unhealthy?

The teen texting rate keeps climbing. US teens sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages a month in the fourth quarter of 2008, the New York Times reports, citing Nielsen figures. That's "almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier." The Times cites one psychotherapist as saying that adolescents' huge interest in what's going on with peers plus huge anxiety about being out of the loop spell the potential for "great benefit and great harm" from excessive texting. Other healthcare professionals pointed to potential "anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation." As interesting to me, if not more, were comments from MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, who wonders whether all the texting allows teens the "peace and quiet" they need to do their jobs as adolescents: separate from their parents and figure out who they are and will be. Turkle makes two other important points: that parents often don't set the right example with their cellphone use, and adolescence is a time when people need the kind of undivided attention from their parents that cellphone-addicted parents aren't giving them. "I believe the 'cure' doesn't lie so much in hand-wringing or policing usage as much as it does in having honest dialogues about the scientific and emotional side effects of tech dependence as experienced by both generations," writes Ypulse managing editor Meredith Sires in response to the Times piece. Well put. See also "'Continuous partial attention...'."

House rules for teen texting

I really like MomHouston's "10 rules for tween texting", but I recommend that - before they're unveiled (ideally in a family discussion) - parents have repercussions in mind for when rules are not followed, as well as for who pays when a phone's dropped in a tub or pool! Most of these are great for teens too, especially "No texting after bedtime," "Answer me when I'm texting you," and "More than 10 texts in a row and it's time to pick up the phone" (some of these fall under the "Get a life" category, or in the Think About the Message Behind the Text Department). So much of this is common sense and courtesy, which stand us all in good stead regardless of age or the technology or device being used. For example, "Don't text while fighting" is just the cellular version of "If you're angry, sleep on it" (before you write, call, comment, email, blog, etc., etc.). This is about parenting, not technology! As we model this phone behavior for our kids, fewer rules are needed. A couple of MomHouston's rules are more like pet peeves, which is fine - one size never fits all where kids' tech use is concerned. One minor point where I differ with her: I'm not entirely sure I'd want my kids to turn off the ringer - sometimes it's good to hear how much they're texting, especially when they're supposed to be focused on something else, such as homework or what Grandma's saying! Lord knows their phones are on vibrate and they're in stealth mode enough of the time. But tell me if you disagree with any of this (in comments here or in our ConnectSafely forum. For more on ageless cellphone etiquette for everybody, see this in the Washington Post.

Where 160-character texts (& tweets) come from

A year ago, US cellphone users (not just teenaged ones, who sent a lot more) sent an average of 357 texts per month versus an average of 204 voice calls, the Los Angeles Times reports, but how did they arrive at 160 characters for the max length of text messages? Well, it was an interesting thought, research, and experimentation process that started with a guy in Bonn, Germany, named Friedhelm Hillebrand back in 1985, when "the guys who invented Twitter were probably still playing with Matchbox cars." Hillebrand was "chairman of the nonvoice services committee within the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), a group that sets standards for the majority of the global mobile market." That group decreed that "all cellular carriers and mobile phones ... must support the short messaging service (SMS)," the Times reports. Hillebrand, it adds, was also the man who discovered the pipe or channel for all those texts, "a secondary radio channel that already existed on mobile networks."

Twitter going mainstream

Mainstream among young adults, mostly, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (teens off the study's radar, but they microblog in other ways). Twitter, the most popular service for microblogging or status updating, and other such "have been avidly embraced by young adults," Pew says - nearly a fifth (19%) of US 18-to-24-year-olds and a full 20% of 25-to-34-year-olds now use such services to send "short updates about themselves, their lives, their whereabouts ... moods," personal, professional, national, and international news. Citizen journalism is a key component of microblogging online. But what seems to be the No. 1 attraction is that Twitter is "an inconspicuous way of staying in touch with the passions, obsessions of your friends, colleagues, and experts," as described by author and professor Howard Rheingold in this "Why does microblogging matter" slide show. Pew adds that Twitter use is "highly intertwined" with blogging and social networking, and its users are a very mobile bunch, accessing the social Net a lot from mobile wireless devices. And "mobile" is the operative word for teens, for whom texting = microblogging. Meanwhile, as for mobile social networking, the number of people who access MySpace by phone has quadrupled in the past year to 20 million, the service's CEO Chris de Wolfe said in a keynote at Europe's mobile industry trade show last week, InformationWeek reports. [See also "A (digital) return to village life?"]

Digital dating abuse

Sexting (sending naked photos of oneself or peers) is one form of it. Other forms: nonstop text messages from/to a boyfriend or girlfriend (or anyone), a digital form of stalking; sending around unbecoming photos or videos of someone via phone or Web; hacking into a peer's profile and cruelly misrepresenting him in comments that look like they're coming from him; or posting mean comments to someone in her social network profile or via an app like "Honesty Box." "The behaviors can be a warning sign that a teenager may become a perpetrator or a victim of domestic violence," reports the New York Times, citing the view of the San Francisco-based Family Violence Prevention Fund. In fact, the Fund, a public-awareness nonprofit, calls this "digital dating violence," not just "abuse" (it can also be called "cyberbullying"). If not physical, it certainly can do violence to people lives, including the lives of young people who send nude photos of "themselves." For example, this month six high school students in western Pennsylvania were charged with child pornography, three girls with distribution (for taking and sending nude photos of themselves) and three boys with possession, a commentator at CNET reports. The Minneapolis Star Tribune today reported that "all but one of the students accepted a lesser misdemeanor charge, partly to avoid a trial and further embarrassment." But they were charged with serious crimes, and two Florida teens fared much worse in 2007 (see "Teens' child-porn convictions upheld"). "Whatever the outcome, the mere fact that child pornography charges were filed at all is stirring debate among students and adults," according to the Star Tribune. Law professor Mary Leary wrote in the Virginia Journal of Law and Policy last summer that, though prosecution in such cases shouldn't be mandatory, it "should remain an option for the state."

Signs of dating abuse

Intrusive behavior like 24/7, high-frequency texting can be one of the warning signs, but the underlying issue is control. The New York Times cites a study last July in the Archives of Pedatrics and Adolescent Medicine, which found that "more than one-third of the 920 students questioned were victims of emotional and physical abuse by romantic partners before they started college." It seems to me one of the most important things to tell our kids is that - no matter how flattering possessiveness, jealousy, and constant attention may feel - too often these behaviors are much more about control than love. Not every household has or can enforce rules about when cellphones, laptops, and connected game consoles are turned off, but such rules can not only help regulate usage; they can serve as back-up when a teen needs a reason to ask for some space. I hope it never gets this far for anyone reading this, but here are some signs of dating abuse in the Times article: Victims "are more likely to engage in binge drinking, suicide attempts, physical fights and sexual activity. And the rates of drug, alcohol and tobacco use are more than twice as high in abused girls as in other girls the same age." See also "How social influencing works."

Stalking texters, sexting monsters: A bit of help

You wouldn't think that the guy who made "Extreme PB&J Sandwich Making" would be an excellent source of advice on establishing digital boundaries. But YouTube and post-YouTube star Brandon Hardesty delivers brilliantly in his 4.5 minute video "What If" in ThatsNotCool.com. If your kid even knows someone who knows someone who's getting pressured by a peer to send nude photos of him or herself via cellphone, you might appreciate watching Brandon playing the roles of Mom, Dad, guidance counselor, and boyfriend as potential confidants in a situation like this. You might also love the quite fruity "Pressure Pic Problem," providing a slightly less agnostic perspective than Brandon's. I did. ThatsNotCool.com is brilliant too. It's co-created and -sponsored by the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Ad Council, and Office on Violence Against Women "to address new and complicated problems between teens who are dating or hooking up — problems like constant and controlling texting, pressuring for nude pictures, and breaking into someone's email or social-networking page." Besides the videos, which make for great family discussion talking points, there are "Call-Out Cards" with little messages like "I appreciate your concern for my location EVERY TWO MINUTES" that can be downloaded, emailed, or sent to MySpace or Facebook friends and annoying acquaintances. There are also a discussion forum where people can give and receive advice from peers and a Help section where they can reach out for professional help. BTW, for a bit of context: Nielsen Mobile reports that a typical US teen sends and receives more than 1,700 text messages a month (that's more than 50 a day).

Texting in traffic - careful, people!

A California lawmaker is proposing legislation that bans text messaging while driving, and "federal investigators are looking at the role that a train engineer’s text-messaging might have played [in California last month] in the country’s most deadly commuter rail accident in four decades," the New York Times reports. Texting is getting increasing scrutiny as a dangerous activity for multitasking. "Though there are no official casualty statistics, there is much anecdotal evidence that the number of fatal accidents stemming from texting while driving, crossing the street or engaging in other activities is on the rise."

Teen uber-texters

You do know that American cellphone users send more text messages than they make calls on those phones, right? That was the case almost a year ago. "Since then, the average subscriber’s volume of text messages has shot upward by 64%, while the average number of calls has dropped slightly," the New York Times reports, citing Nielsen Mobile data. But forget about all that. It's the teen-texting data that really makes heads spin: 13-to-17-year-olds send or receive 1,742 messages a month. (It's downhill from there - 18-to-24-year-olds average a mere 790 a month.) The Times adds that "a separate study of teenagers with cellphones by Harris Interactive found that 42% of them claim that they can write text messages while blindfolded."

'Friending' against school policy

It's against school policy in Mississippi's Lamar County Public School District for teachers and students to text each other or to be "friends" in social-networking sites. "Both texting and social networking have too many gray areas that could lead to misunderstanding and downright trouble," the Hattiesburg American reports. The policy's being considered in other Mississippi school districts as well. This reminds me of a case of teacher-to-student sexual exploitation involving texting in the news this past year (sorry I can't find the link at the moment). I'd like to hear your thoughts on the validity of this school policy - in comments here or, ideally, in the ConnectSafely.org forum.

'Running l8, luv, mom'

Kids are seeing texts like that from their parents more and more, the Washington Post reports. "Parental text messaging is outstripping the growth rate among younger generations. In the past two years, use of texting among people 45-54 increased 130%, the Post added, citing M:Metrics research - compared to a mere 41% increase among people 13-17. Apparently, it starts with k2k (kid-to-kid), then it's k2p (k2parent), followed by p2p (not file-sharing but rather parents texting each other to coordinate kid drop-offs and pick-ups and possibly other errands). And now it's even s2p and s2k: "Schools have caught on. Fairfax County and Montgomery County send automatic text-message alerts for weather-related school closures and other emergencies." If you want to learn texting lingo fast (some phones offer a menu of phrases), check with your cellphone carriers; it's quite possible Sprint, Verizon, etc. has a guide for parents and others getting up to speed quickly. Web resources include Lingo2word.com and netlingo.com.

Texting's cost for teens

What a bummer – having to work over summer vacation not to make money but to pay off one’s text-messaging debt. That’s what 17-year-old Sofia in the Washington, D.C., area faces because of a $1,100 monthly cellphone bill for 6,807 text messages last month, and her parents’ plan included only 100 free text messages, the Washington Post reports. “Forget minutes. It's all about the text allowance. It needs to be supersized, now that instant messaging has leapt from the desktop to the mobile…. Think it, text it, keep it short, have to have it,” the Post adds. Now, anyway, since texting teens is nothing new in Saudi Arabia or the Philippines, much less Europe and the rest of Asia. Last month Verizon Wireless "introduced an unlimited texting plan because even its highest bundle of free text messages - 5,000 a month - wasn't enough” for teens, according to the Post. It tells of a group of teens heading to Morocco with no phones, and of a mother wondering how they’ll deal with communicating the old-fashioned, face-to-face way.