A controversial new study has come out that says that teens who text 120 times a day (or more) are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who text less.
The study took place at 20 public high schools in the Cleveland area last year, and is based on the confidential surveys of more than 4,200 students.
Sex
The study discovered that teens who text at least 120 times a day are 3 1/2 times more likely to have had sex than their peers who text less. So I guess if you want to increase your odds of "scoring" the key is to send more text messages.
Fighting
"Hyper-texters" as they are called, were more likely to have been in a physical fight as well. I'm guessing this is because these people have no idea how to resolve a conflict... they have fine tuned their texting skills and not their social skills.
Drinking & Drugs
Teens who text more than the average were also more likely to binge drink, use drugs or take medication without a prescription. I'm pretty sure that this is how "drunk dialing" was invented.
Risky Behavior
It doesn't say that the texting actually causes teens to have sex or do drugs... it's just saying that teens who text more tend to partake in riskier behavior. I don't know how they have time to be out having sex and doing drugs with all that texting.
Limits & Rules
Students in the study also revealed that only about 14% of parents actually enforce any kind of limit or rules on texting. If your parents set limits on texting would you follow the rules?
Texting While Driving
Sadly about one-third of teens between 16 & 17 years old confessed to still sending texts while driving. Now that's just plain dumb. Haven't we learned ANYTHING?
Turns out that about half of children between 8 & 18 send text message on a daily basis and that most of those kids send about 118 texts per day. One in five of the students in the survey were "hyper-texters."
What do you think about all of this? Is texting a gateway drug? Do you think that kids who text a lot are risk takers and more likely to do things like fist fight and have sex?
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