Texting Teens

Posted Jun 8th 2010 5:11AM by Francis Duncan
Filed under: Technology

I've mentioned before that my only daughter is too young for many of the technologies we talk about on SafetyClicks. I am focusing more on her not putting my cell phone in her mouth than debating if she can have her own. With that said, it is sometimes hard for me to visualize statistics like texting has become the #1 form of communication among teens. I don't have the teen in my house sending thousands of texts per month and can't seem to actually look up from the phone.

This year my nephew, who is 15, got a cell phone. He, of course, had been asking for a cell phone for a long time, citing that all of his friends had cell phones (which is true). One of the contributing reasons he got the phone was that he began to miss out on various messages from his friends because of his lack of a cell phone. He missed messages such as a change of location for whose house everyone was going to, where they were going to eat lunch, etc. These are huge things to a 15-year-old.

The question hasn't changed much since I was a teen. How much is too much? My mother used to worry if I was spending too much time on the telephone (attached to the wall). Now the phone travels with teens. It travels with them when they are driving, in school, at the dinner table.

Do you text? Has the age-old worry just been slightly changed with new technology? Or is this just a matter of teaching cell phone etiquette, but the amount of communication is OK?

Comments (1)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

gil 6-08-2010 @ 11:31AM

I was thinking, why not limit when and how long your child can be on their cell phone? Especially if it's text and downloadables you're worried about. AT&T has this feature - http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/articles-resources/parental-controls/smart-limits.jsp, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other carriers had similar programs. While your kids are in school or should be at home (past a certain hour), they don't NEED their cell phones, so you can shut off their talk time completely during those periods. Of course, as they get older (or prove themselves to be responsible) you could loosen up on the restrictions. But does a 12 year old really need to be able to call someone at midnight?

Oh, and I'm assuming these programs (which I've never used) allow you to receive your texts and missed voicemails when the phone comes back onto the network, but if not, that could be an issue.

And I second cell phone etiquette. Heck, I think a lot of us ("responsible" adults) could use a refresher course on cell phone etiquette.