Parents Need to Know: Texting Teens More Sexually Active, Use More Drugs, Alcohol

Apparently, texting while driving may not be the only texting issue that teens have to deal with these days. In April of 2010, a poll estimated that over 75 percent of teens now have a cell phone or smartphone. With that much access to media, just what are the ramifications? Are teens that text more likely to engage in risky and even dangerous behavior? Studies seem to indicate that indeed, they do.

The Texting Teen Phenomenon

A Pew study conducted in 2009 discovered that 54 percent of teens polled were "daily texters." Not only that but half of those kids sent 50 or more text messages each day, 30 percent sent over 100 text messages each day, and 15 percent send over 200 text messages each day. That comes to around 6,000 text messages each month.

As our family sat in a restaurant recently, we noticed a strange but not uncommon phenomenon. A family with several kids was seated next to our table.Two teen siblings, each seated across from one another at the table, were busy with something in each of their respective laps. They were looking down, both hands hidden beneath the table surface, laughing and reacting to whatever was in their lap.

Turns out the two siblings were engaged in a texting conversation with one another. There they were, seated right across the table form one another, texting furiously. Seemed to us that it would just be easier to talk across the table rather than text. It's a common thing these days with kids. I get my cell phone bill each month that itemizes the time and number of each text message. Last month my bill was 112 pages.

The Research Indicates the Problem is Lack of Parental Oversight

The study was conducted by researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Over 4,000 students at 20 different schools were involved in the surveys. What they found was that it was not the actual texting that caused kids to engage in risky or dangerous behavior. Shawn Alff at Creative Loafing says, "Typing emoticons doesn't program idle hands to start undressing or reaching for illicit drugs."

The problem comes with the amount of texting. Kids with parents who are a bit more permissive or even absent just text more and are going to be more susceptible to peer pressure. So texting does not cause the problem, it just allows more opportunity for kids to engage in sexual activity, drug use, and alcohol use. The author of the study, Dr. Scott Frank, says it should be a "wake-up call for parents."

Sources:

Sex, Drugs More Common in Hyper-Texting Teens

Excessive Texting linked to sex, drugs, risky behaviors: Study

Just as you thought: More teens are texting