Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Few parents and teenagers today go untouched by the phenomena of cell phone excessive texting. Excessive texting has created a mountain of challenges for both young people and adults. While nothing is wrong with an occasional text to tell friends and family such as ”Hey, I’ll meet you at Tinseltown” or “You’d better bring an umbrella”, excessive texting carries many negatives. Let’s examine them.
Poor school performance. The research is rolling in and showing that both high school and college students who engage in excessive texting perform poorly in school. Not only does texting take time from studies, it often keeps student texters up until the early morning hours. You can imagine the effects of poor sleep on student’s classroom performance and on sleep-impaired test-taking memory. Parents may take away cell phones and texting privileges, yet tech-savvy kids find ways around it using computers, internet-connected gaming devices, and tablets. DSI games and Wi-Fi texting apps for tablets are quite popular texting platforms. Parents need to outflank their teens and account for all devices in the house. Parents find themselves needing to set and enforce rules for texting and its time limits.
Memory impairment. Nobody retains information well if they are multi-tasking (texting, watching TV, and “studying” on a computer at the same time). Divided attention simply erodes memory. Excessive texting leads to poor test performance and subpar recall.
Poor attention. Young people who excessively text develop poor attention spans, a real minus when it comes to significant communicating with others. Multi-tasking during a conversation is simply not being present. Excessive texters are well noted for not “being there” and for being prone to be socially inept.
Poor social communication. Excessive texters frequently score poorly at reading bodily communication, social cues, facial expressions, intonation–the stuff that conveys emotional meanings. As a result, they often do poorly at connecting emotionally one-on-one. Frequently, they report discomfort and “boredom” when talking with friends and family in person or engaging in real conversations on the phone or video phones like Skype. Excessive texters are known to demonstrate an intolerance and impatience for actual conversation. Texting, facebook messaging, and Twittering are not conversations–they are basically teletype communications for folks with limited attention spans.
Motor vehicle accidents. Young people, with heavily divided attention, have a higher probability of becoming involved in traffic accidents. People cannot multi-task and drive. How many times have we seen thumbs wildly pumping away at a cell phone behind the wheel? Being on a cell phone and especially texting leads to many vehicular accidents and even deaths. Cell phone conversations and texting slow reaction time on par with drinking and driving. Divided attention simply doesn’t work on the road.
Poor written communications skills. Young people who excessively text often demonstrate poor writing skills, poor grammar, and poor spelling. Many have little time for reading anything more than a cell phone face or a LOL. They learn to write in terse and ultra-brief sentences, which doesn’t serve them well either academically or in the work world.
Imagine a love letter from an excessive texter?
Lost sleep effects on health, emotional health, and developing brains. Excessive texting that goes on into the night and early morning hours means poor sleep. Not only does it rob energy and memory, lost sleep spells poor functioning immune systems and the higher probability of inflammatory disease and obesity. Sleep is important for emotional health and better moods. Poor sleep impedes brain development and is linked with anxiety and depression.
Approval-seeking instead of self-acceptance. Often young texters not already self-accepting retreat into the world of superficial friendships where they text-message to stay in the loop and attempt to maintain approval. Many texters don’t know each other well because they seldom have actual conversations or know each other in face-to-face communication. Some young texters become down when others don’t respond to their text messages or a “friend” becomes a texting bully. It can be a rocky road for some teens with few real friendships who do not accept themselves yet and own a self-critical voice.
Addictive behavior. Because excessive texting stimulates pain-killer endorphins, an addictive part of our biochemistry, texting can become an addictive habit often difficult to ramp down. Like other addictive and compulsive behaviors, excessive texting can be utilized out-of-awareness to avoid uncomfortable feelings and emotions. This in turn can lead to various emotional challenges and to young people being out of touch with themselves and others. To note texting’s addictive qualities, watch a teenager struggle to break free of excessive texting and their denial of having a problem.
Sexting & disinhibition. It has been noted that texting has disinhibiting effect if done for lengthy periods. Adolecents are more likely to “act out”, cross behavior barriers, and engage in sexting and flashing.
Altered states & increased suggestability. Due to excessive periods of texting young people’s normal boundaries and critical reasoning abilities can be breached, leaving them in a heightened state of suggestability. In such states youngsters are more easily manipulated and their basic values can be swept aside.
Little alone time for quiet reflection and maturity. Due to almost constant vibrating cell phones and ringtones, young texters may experience very little alone time required for reflection and maturity.
These are 12 very challenging difficulties for young people at key junctures in their development and education.
