Report finds teens are texting too much
A new report has found that the average teen sends & receives a massive 80 text messages a day, with some kids even losing sleep and pushing their thumbs to the max to keep up with endless SMS threads. Could this be a worrisome health threat?
The New York Times refers to a Nielsen study that found the average U.S. teenager sent & received more than 2,200 SMS messages per month in Q4 2008—or as the Times notes, about 80 messages a day, double what it was the previus year.
Physicians and psychologists tick off a list of possible physical and mental symptoms from the constant barrage of text messages. To name a few: sleep deprivation as teens fire off SMS replies late at night, “terrific anxiety” over the fear of “being out the loop,” and even repetitive-stress injuries (RSI) as thumbs fly across the keypads.
Of course most of the concerns listed in the Times story are anecdotal; there aren’t any clinical studies as yet that show a definite link between heavy texting and mental and/or physical harm in teens.
Time will tell if so much texting has adverse health effects, and we await the verdict with baited breath.
