Teenagers who text up 120 times a day ‘are more likely to have had sex, use drugs and drink alcohol’

Editor’s Note: This new US study unveiled in the UK Mail can also be applied to Britain and only confirms what we have suspected for a while now: namely that it’s like, much more bett’a to be on contract than on pay-as-you-go, innit? By Daily Mail Reporter Nov 9, 2010

Hyper-texting and hyper-networking are more common among children from poorly educated and single-mother households, U.S. study finds

Teenagers who text 120 times a day or more are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who don’t send as many messages, according to provocative new research. The study’s authors say they have seen an apparent link between excessive messaging and this kind of risky behaviour. While researchers say they aren’t suggesting that ‘hyper-texting’ leads to sex, drinking or drugs, the study concludes that a significant number of teens are very susceptible to peer pressure and also have permissive or absent parents, said Dr Scott Frank, the study’s lead author. ‘If parents are monitoring their kids’ texting and social networking, they’re probably monitoring other activities as well,’ said Dr Frank, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Dr Frank was scheduled to present the study today at a meeting of the American Public Health Association in Denver. The study was done at 20 public high schools in the Cleveland area last year, and is based on confidential paper surveys of more than 4,200 students. It found that about one in five students were hyper-texters and about one in nine are hyper-networkers – those who spend three or more hours a day on Facebook a .nd other social networking websites. Around one in 25 fall into both categories Hyper-texting and hyper-networking were more common among girls, minorities, kids whose parents have less education and students from a single-mother household, the study found. Dr Frank’s study is billed as one of the first studies to look at texting and social networking and whether they are linked to actual sexual intercourse or to other risky behaviours. ‘This study demonstrates that it’s a legitimate question to explore,’ said Douglas Gentile, who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University. The study found those who text at least 120 times a day are nearly three-and-a-half times more likely to have had sex than their peers who don’t text that much… READ FULL ARTICLE HERE