Let’s face it; texting teenagers are everywhere. Most teens view their cell phones as the key to their social lives.Teenagers aged thirteen to seventeen text the most, receiving an average of 1,800 texts per month. A new study defines teens who text over 120 messages a day as “hyper-texters.” Some physicians and psychologists are worried that this technological phenomenon will lead to

• anxiety
• distraction in school
• repetitive stress injury
• muscle problems
• sleep deprivation

Many teens stay up throughout the night to text which causes daytime fatigue and problems concentrating in school. Texting is a distraction to school work because teens are able to text while keeping their phones hidden during a lesson, which distracts them from learning. Around 24% of teens attend schools that ban cell phones from school grounds, but still 65% of teens bring their phones to school everyday. When asked if she thought texting effected her school work, Madeline VanHorn (‘14) responded, “I don’t really think that texting effects my school works as much as the Internet does.”  About 54% of teens text their friends on a daily basis. With all the new lingo being used, texting has begun to have a negative effect on teenagers’ grammar, such as lol, brb, and ttyl standing for laugh out loud, be right back, and talk to you later.

Texting effects not only teenagers’ mental health but their physical as well.  It can cause pain in the thumbs due to repetitive typing on a small keyboard. A more serious effect is car accidents, which can be fatal or lead to serious injury. Research shows that about 6,000 deaths and around half a million injuries are caused by distracted drivers each year. It takes about five seconds to answer a text,which is long enough to travel across the length of a football field. Often times when teens are behind the wheel, they look down at their phones and lose sight of the road or they temporarily let go of the wheel to text. Recently, a law was issued which prohibits texting and talking on the phone while driving. As technology develops, there are more and more ways to stay connected with each other but this new technology could have harmful effects on teenagers’ health.