SAFELY SPOTLIGHT
Do Teens Really Love Their Phones?
by November 17, 2011 • 7:08 pm
Earlier this week, Safely’s @Max posted a Safely Spotlight infographic on how teens use their mobile phones. Statistics are all good and well, but they don’t tell the full story. A study from Pew Research asked teens how they feel about cell phones. This is what they had to say.
“I never consider myself a person who is constantly on the phone, but then when I lost it for a couple of days I felt…I felt really exposed…. I feel like it becomes almost like a security blanket.”
We all know teens text all the time, but cell phones aren’t only for talking with friends.
Over 90% of teens said they feel safer because they have a cell phone. And almost 95% said cell phones give them more freedom because they allow them to contact their parents from anywhere.
Teens may think it’s cool to rebel, but in reality, most teens are glad their parents are only a call or text away.
“I think texting replaces conversations you have on the phone, but I don’t think it replaces, like, interaction…You call them to make plans, you don’t call them INSTEAD of making plans.”
Many people claim technology is making us anti-social. Even the Mayo Clinic warns parents that over texting may cause their kids to skip meals or ignore activities they used to love.
If you ask teens how they use their phones, you get a completely different picture.
Teens see cellphones as a way to help organize real-life activities, not replace them. 84% said one thing they really like about cellphones is they make it easy to change plans.
Texting has ended the hassle of playing phone-tag with 8 different people. These days, changing your plans is as easy as sending a mass text with a new time and place to all of your friends.
“I rarely fight but whenever I do have an argument, [it’s when] someone will send me a text message… it’s usually if they say something and put a period at the end. It’ll be, like, really abrupt, and you’ll be, like, ‘Oh, that sounded like they are mad.”
In a text conversation you can’t hear the other person’s voice or see their face. This makes it easy to misinterpret what someone is saying. These misunderstandings often lead to arguments that wouldn’t have happened if you had been talking face to face.
Many teens feel texting is impersonal. One high school girl even went so far as to call texting “a false sense of communication.” It’s fine for talking with your friends when you can’t see them, but it doesn’t replace old-fashioned heart-to-heart conversation.
“Our friends are texting constantly, and the people will wake me up at like midnight and I have to like wake up and talk to them or like they’ll think I’m mad at them or something.”
Contrary to what you might think, teens don’t always enjoy texting. Almost 50% feel irritated when calls or texts interrupt what they are doing. Many say the constant stream of messages is overwhelming.
One major problem teens talk about is texting at night. Many teens feel annoyed when texts from their friends wake them up. They feel obligated to respond, just like many adults do when their co-workers send them email after hours.
Ultimately, teens realize that constant contact is a trade off. In the words of one high school girl:
“It just keeps you connected and you can talk to other people, but in return it also sometimes just gets annoying. [It’s] kind of a give and take.”
Have you asked your kids how they feel about texting? What did they have to say?
Join the conversation on Twitter with @Safely.
