News Flash – Teens Can Text with their Eyes Closed
Posted by Lisa in Kids and Technology, tags: parenting, survey, technology, teens, tweens, usage
Texting Lifestyle - Photo Credit: Flickr/Sintex
A new national survey on teens’ cell phone habits confirms what most parents already know, teens consider cell phones at the top of their hierarchy of needs. Maybe that’s why at my own house I completely caved to my middle school daughter’s pleas for a cell phone.
According to the Harris Interactive/CTIA study, a majority of teens consider their cell phone essential to their social life and an indicator of their social status, second only to clothing.
Teens are passionate about texting and 42% claim to be able to text blindfolded. I marvel how fast conversation snippets fly from my daughter’s fingers. Of course, she has a newer and much cooler cell phone than I do.
Teens and parents consider the cell phone a mobile safety net. Teens report having a cell phone for security on the go — to get a ride, to get important information and to help someone in trouble. Safety was definitely a factor in our decision to buy our daughter a phone. Perhaps this reflects a parent’s wish to keep our kids within reach in an increasingly dangerous world?
On the negative side, stories abound of teens texting while driving, surprising their parents with sky-high cell phone bills, using text-speak in homework assignments and loss of sleep due to their texting obsessions.
Does your child have a cell phone? Is it way cooler than your own phone? What limitations have you set? Is the cell phone a sense of stress in your relationship with your child? Is there a positive side to this technology?
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This is disturbing! I don’t even know how to send a text message on my phone…does that make me sound like my mom? I am getting old.
Enjoy your site, glad I found it!
The deal with my teenage boys is that they have pay-per-minute phones. I bought their phones and some minutes to get them started for several months. And I’ll usually get them a phone card for their birthday and/or Christmas, but any minutes beyond that they must buy themselves. This has really helped my kids to use their cell phone time wisely. They’re not talking and texting all the time because they know it’s costing them money! And we avoid the fights every month that many families experience when the family cell phone bill arrives and it’s high because the kids didn’t stick to their allotted minutes. This has worked out really well for us. They’ve also been told that if they text or talk while driving, the cell phone will be taken away. Teens have very high accident rates, and it’s often caused by being distracted. No call is important enough for them to take their eyes off the road!
Susan,
Pay as you go sounds really smart for kids. My daughter doesn’t drive yet, thankfully. I’m curious as to how you enforce the no texting/talking while driving? Is the threat of no-cell phone enough? Do you police it? Would your boys tell on each other?
Hey parents,
The idea of trying to stop your kids from texting or “overusing their phones” isn’t going to teach them anything, it will just make them incompetent communicators as the grow up. Most of us can text, and prefer it because we can communicate without both people being available, and in situations where it wouldn’t work to call someone (loud room, quiet room..).
Kids want to talk, just like you talk, and being able to text and call people makes it a lot easier. There’s no reason to stop them from using their phones except money, and you’ll find that most kids would rather have the $5 unlimited text plans than have any minutes at all (my entire family uses less than 100 minutes a month, and most of my friends are the same way).
-A College Student
can you type with your eyes closed? most likely yes, so what is the difference
Pay as you go is a good more for adults who dont use there phones as often and quite young children but unlimeted is probably the way too go. While it does cost a lil extra the kids will be happy and you wont ever have to deal with them going over there rate limit and having to deal with exspensive phone bills
I love how texting while driving results in no more cell phone as apposed to no more car privilege. I think not being able to use the car would have been a bigger deal when I was living at home. That was fewer then 5 years ago. I guess things change fast.
Alright.
My parents refused to get me a cell phone until I was 17. I didn’t notice the ’social status’ change any. In fact, it was rather nice not having anyone bother me when I’m busy with my alone time. =)
I’m 20 now. The cell phone annoys the crap out of me and so do the people my age and older going ‘OMG I WANT THE SIDEKICK WITH THE KEYBOARD OR BLACKBERRY IPHONE CURVE!”
Give it a bloody break. It’s a phone. It rings all the time and after the excitement of knowing people want to hang out with you dissipates, I tend to ignore it.
I will admit.. I can text with my eyes closed.
In fact, my ex boyfriend said I type on a keyboard and text so fast that I should go into Court Reporting.
And thats what I’m doing.
Look at texting from the good side. =) THey might have a great career in front of them!
Hey Lisa what’s bothering you? That your kids SMS faster then you?
Get Used to it.
Okay, so what we could text with our eyes closed. nd the high bills, gosh there’s unlimited. Ad texting while driving? Tell your kid to turn their phone off[or you could force them]
Its that easy. Remember your the adult. Your the head pf the family.
So stop complaining. Because my parents blocked my text messahes! And the sad thing is I didn’t text all that much, people texted me…
In my country, we can get 2000 text messages for $10 per month, so my parents pay that, and i have to pay anything else myself. I do find my phone a pain in the a$$ sometimes, like when i get texts at 3am and i’ve forgotten to turn my phone off
I can do this!
After u use ur 1000 free texts up each month then u kinda learn!
I just like touch typeing really.
My phone rocks, and its true; a mobile does say so much about you. I assume this article was written in the US where mobiles aren’t so craved, but in the UK if you don’t own a mobile you don’t deserve to live – seriously its about that bad – i myself am 16 and had a mobile since 12, and that was late. Nowadays i don’t know anyone younger than 14 without a mobile other than my grandparents, and even they’re considering it. We have mobile shops everywhere and adverts for the latest mobile on almost every bus, its insane!
Just go the G1 – google phone, absolutely amazing mobile with push-email (look it up), a full touch screen and slide out querty keyboard. So at the moment i can’t text blindfolded because the layout is not what im used to, but im sure give me a week and i’ll be rattling them out.
There’s no down sides to mobiles other than the cost, but we don’t even have a landline, just use the mobiles, so in essential. Oh, and to those who are concerned about teens becoming addicted to texting, all i can say is how sad that teen must be… So if your kid is addicted to texting, let them because it probably means they don’t have any real (face to face) social life – just rap the kid in a box and put them in the ocean…
oops – i mean **i don’t know anyone OLDER than 14 without a mobile…
I am 22 and a student at a good liberal arts college. I do not own a cell phone and I never plan to. I think that society’s reliance on cell phones, especially among the youth, has actually made communication WORSE. It is inappropriate for people to be texting other friends while they are already with a friend/group of friends. It is important to focus on the people you are with at the time. The same thing goes for calling. Also, the use of cell phone has rendered most people I know completely incapable of planning ahead. Example: “Let’s all go to the mall!” “Ok, but we want to go to different stores.” “Oh, I will just text you when I’m done.” “I do not have a cell phone.” “Um…uh, maybe we shouldn’t go to the mall.” “Or we could plan on a time to meet?” “No, that’s too hard.” This situation happens much more often than you would think. People are sometimes reluctant to go to THE NEXT FLOOR DOWN to knock on my dorm door when everyone is going to go somewhere. When I ask them why they did not invite me, they always say that they forgot because I did not have a cell phone. Why is everyone so utterly dependent on something that did not exist a short time ago? I even know people who cannot sleep unless their cell phone is with them in their bed!
Sara,
I don’t think this situation is unique to teens. There are similar issues with working adults who have iphones and Blackberry devices. Who knows, perhaps in this economic downturn, people will reduce their cell phone minutes and rediscover face-to-face communication.
Being able to text with out looking at your cell phone is no diffrent than being able to type on your key board with out looking. Why is this such a big deal? Its a mean of communication. Its better kids are communicating in any form than locked into a video game. Texting is a great means of communication it is instant and can help getting information to someone who might not be able to answer there phone at that moment and have an entire conversation. Its also cheaper than phone minutes. And for the texting while driving I do this all the time and its no diffrent then turning the radio from one station to the next I don’t even look at my phone to send the text. It is no more distracting for me than if that person was in the car having a conversation with me so to be a really effective driver they should make single seated vehicles.
Valerie,
It’s not a big deal. While I’m amazed at my tween’s ability to text so fast. But I understand that this method of communication is preferred by her generation. When I was growing up it was a phone. I remember tying up my parents’ phone line for hours and I’m not even sure we had call waiting back then
I can’t agree with your comment on texting and driving. I do think that is a dangerous combination.
I just tried this and I can do it quite easily.
Requirements: A Nokia phone and predictive text on.
Simple really, it’s just a case of knowing which letters are on which keys.
I am over 30
Well my phone is crap compared to my parents because i dropped my phone in the toliet. It fell out of my pocket but even then it was worthless. Anyway, i can text with my eyes closed as well. I feel it does help my social life, and i rarly talk on the phone. I, however, do not write in ‘text speak’. It looks retarses and incompetent.
heather
As a teenage boy I can say that a cell phone is a necessity. I use mine constantly, not just for texting with friends, but to tell my parents I’m staying after school or need a ride. Instead of putting restrictions on cell phones that hamper teens unnecessarily, how about just stressing that they can’t text or call people while in a car? It’s dangerous, and quite frankly, dumb. No kids write in “text-speak” on stuff that matters, like forms, or homework. And about staying up late texting: kids will stay up doing something else if they can’t use their phones. Computers, video games, books even. Most of the points mentioned in this article are the fault of parents raising their child badly, so they lack common sense. Instead of blaming the newest technology blame what has been the problem for hundreds of years. Dumb teens. (Don’t assume ever teen is dumb though, that’s just stereotypical)