Now a days, you don’t see anyone without their phone in their hand. Whether it is listening to music, checking social media or texting, people, especially teenagers always have their phones one them. On average how many texts do you think you send a day? 40? 50? 60? According to a survey, “U.S. smartphone owners aged 18 to 24 send 2,022 texts per month on average — 67 texts on a daily basis — and receive another 1,831” (Business Insider) For teenagers, texting is our main use of communication. Those who are constantly checking their phone, snap if you interrupt them, lack sleep and fail to get their work done are known as compulsive texters. Specifically, for girls, compulsive texting is associated with lower academic performance.
“’Compulsivity is more than just the number of texts teens are engaging in,’ said Kelly M. Lister-Landman, the paper’s lead author and an assistant professor of psychology at Delaware County Community College in Media, Pa.” (The New York Times) Do you feel anxious if you don’t have your phone on you? Do you feel like you have to check your phone constantly, even when eating dinner with your family? If you answered yes to these questions it is possible that you are a compulsive texter. Girls are shown to have a higher texting compulsivity than boys do. In the study, boys who were compulsive texters were not at risk for lower academics. This study is not the only study that has looked into the effect of texting on teenagers. Another study showed that college students who text while doing homework have lower grades and those who text during class take less detailed notes as well as have trouble recalling information. Excessive use of the internet has been linked to trouble sleeping.
This new study exemplifies the “correlation between compulsive texting and problems in school but does not explain whether texting is a direct cause of poorer school performance or whether another problem like depression or substance abuse is driving both behaviors” (The New York Times). Kimberly Young, a psychologist who founded the Center for Internet Addiction, believes that texting is not causing academic problems, but attention-span is.
A new study examined elements of school performance (not just grades but engagement) and students perception of their own academic habits. 211 eighth graders and 192 juniors in high school were given a questionnaire to asses whether or not they were compulsive texters. Dr. Young, based the questions off a pathological gambling scale and morphed it to fit compulsive internet use because a study found that teenager texters had a lot in common with compulsive gamblers (losing sleep, problems cutting back on texting, lying to cover up the amount of time they spent).
Some questions included,”Do you not do your chores to spend more time texting? Do you text longer than you intended? Do you snap, yell or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are texting? Other items inquire whether teenagers are losing sleep because of texting, if they have tried but have been unable to cut down on their texting, and if they lie to cover up the amount of time spent texting.”
47 students out of the 403 students who participated said that they did not text everyday and were taken out of the analysis. Out of the remaining participants, girls were far more likely to be compulsive texters than boys. About 12% of girls were considered compulsive texters and only 3% of boys. Most compulsive texters sent more than 100 texts a day. Although, girls in the study were more engaged in school and performed better over all 14% of the girls who were considered compulsive texters were C students and boys who were compulsive texters were B students or better.
Overall, I agree with Kimberly Young, when she says its not that phones that are causing the low grades but the attention-span of individuals. Since any of us are unable to sit still or focus on one thing, it causes us to find other distractions and usually our phone is always readily available. If we were to put our phones in our backpacks or even not bring your phone too class, I think it would increase our grades and help us learn how to focus more on the information we are being taught.
This study that you researched was very interesting to me. I do not think I would consider myself a compulsive texter, but I do check my phone a lot. I understand how girls are more likely to be compulsive texters, but I was surprised to see that their grades were worse than boys because of that. Earlier in the year, Andrew mentioned how girls tend to do better in school than boys, and there are many articles online to support that statement. Overall I think your blog was very detailed and showed a very good view of how compulsive texting affects school performance.
I’ll be the first to admit that I text way to often. The study in your post about how girls are more likely to be compulsive texters than boys is interesting and I would agree with that. I would have to disagree with the studies finding when it comes grades, however. I would say that I send about 100 texts which are very bad I know. Yet I would consider myself an A- B-plus students. Maybe meta-analysis would explain these findings better. It’s also interesting how compulsive boy texters get higher grades than compulsive girl texters. I looked on Urban Dictionary and there is actually a disorder for Compulsive Texting disorder check it out! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Compulsive+Texting+Disorder
I think it’s interesting that there is a notable difference between boys and girls on texting habits. After thinking about it, I began to wonder if that had anything to do with the nature of relationships between boys and girls and their peers. In my own (obviously anecdotal) experience, girls seem to have more relationship levels and ways of communications than boys. Think about facial expressions. For me as a girl, I can have whole conversations with close friends using only facial expressions. When you give the same facial expressions to a guy, usually a blank look is returned. (Guys feel free to tell me I’m wrong on this. Clearly my experience is one-sided) According to this study, there are definitely some serious differences between female and male relationships with peers at a young age, which gives me some evidence to support my hypothesis that girls’ relationship style is more in line with compulsive contact.
Very good post. I knew this was a stereotype for a while, so it was interesting to see some hard facts on the subject. This article (http://www.fastcompany.com/3008618/mobilizing/researcher-passionate-about-digital-communication-age-ten-sandra-cortesi-how-youn) provides some interesting feedback that give reasons why the findings of the research are true.
I found this post extremely interesting because I would consider myself to be an above average texted. It seems that no matter what I do, I always have my phone in my hand and am talking to someone else. It is good to know that I am not alone in this scenario. However I do not completely agree with the conclusions that you came too. Since the human attention span in our generation has lowered so much do to the availability of phones, I have often found that small breaks can relieve boredom and allow me to focus better in class.
Your post is very interesting and useful for us to know about. Did anything you read give a reason why girls may be more susceptible to becoming compulsive texters than boys? I wonder if it would be more of a biological or a cultural consequence.