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Posts Tagged ‘texting’

Is Texting Good For Adolescents?

The short answer is yes, at least if the goal is to develop more offline friendships. That is the argument of Maria Koutamanis and co-authors in a study published in Computers in Human Behavior:

The first aim of this study was to investigate whether instant messaging (IM) influences adolescents’ ability to initiate offline friendships. The second aim was to study the validity of two underlying mechanisms that may account for this relationship: (a) the opportunities offered by IM to communicate with a variety of people, and (b) to disclose intimate information. A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted among 690 Dutch adolescents (10–17 years old). Results show that adolescents’ IM use increased their ability to initiate offline friendships over time. Furthermore, IM use indirectly increased adolescents’ ability to initiate offline friendships through the diversity of their online communication partners. These findings suggest that adolescents can practice social skills online and learn to relate to a variety of people, which, over time, may increase their ability to initiate offline friendships.

(HT: Kevin Lewis)



Don't Walk and Text

Our motto has always been “friends don’t let friends walk drunk.” We might have to add texting to that list. A new paper from BMJ Group shows that walking and texting is really not a good idea. The study looked at more than 1,000 pedestrians in Seattle, and found texting to be a particularly troublesome distraction:

Texters took almost two seconds (18%) longer to cross the average junction of three to four lanes than those who weren’t texting at the time.

And they were also almost four times more likely to ignore lights, to cross at the middle of the junction, or fail to look both ways before stepping off the curb. 

In a country where more than 4,000 pedestrians are killed each year in traffic accidents, it seems sensible to do what we can to decrease our chances. The authors write:

Individuals may feel they have “safer use” than others, view commuting as “down time,” or have compulsive behaviors around mobile-device use. … Ultimately a shift in normative attitudes about pedestrian behavior, similar to efforts around drunk-driving, will be important to limit the … risk of mobile-device use.



Nation of Texters: A Third of People Prefer a Text to Talking

A new poll from the Pew Research Center asked Americans about how they use their phone, and in particular, their phone’s non-voice features. They got predictable but still staggering results about sending and receiving text messages, especially from the younger demographic. The summary states:

Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.