Not A Shocker: Teens Like Texting Over Talking

OMG!, as if you needed a study to know this: Among teenagers, cell phone texting is now clearly, officially, poll-proven, like the most preferred method of electronic communication among friends, with talking on the phone a close second. This 4-1-1 comes from a report, “Teens and Mobile Phones,” released yesterday by Pew Research Center’s on-going Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study surveyed 800 teens betweens the ages of 12 – 17.

The study dissected virtually every aspect of teen usage. For example: Teens, on average, make or receive five telephone calls each day, but a third of all teens send more than 100 texts a day; 14 percent more than 200.

Fully two thirds of teen texters say that are more likely use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them by cell phone. “For a lot of teens, having a cell phone is like carrying around these floating worlds of friends with them in their daily lives and even late at night,” said co-researcher Scott Campbell, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Michigan. “Teens will actually sleep with their phone or keep it at their beds,” he said.

Three of every four 12-to-17-year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45 percent in 2004. Two of every three teens got their cells before age 12.

When it comes to texting or talking, girls rule.

• •Girls, ages 14 to 17, average 100 or more messages daily, or about 3,000 a month. Of all ages, they send or receive an average of 80 texts every day; boys, 30.
• •Fifty-nine percent of girls call friends daily; boys, 42 percent.
• •Sixty-four percent of all teen cell phone users say they have texted in class; 24 percent have made calls during class.
• •This despite 62 percent saying they can have cell phones in school, but not in class, and 24 percent attending schools that ban cell phones, period.

As far as parents:

• •Sixty-two percent have taken the phones away as punishment, but 94 percent, especially the parents of girls, feel better knowing their children have cells to stay in touch.

Researchers asked, “Why don’t you just turn off your phones?” and actually got looks of horror from the teens they surveyed. They couldn’t conceive of turning off their phones.