Teen Texting and Schools

If you think texting and driving is a hot-button issue, consider the risks of texting while walking. You may have heard about Alexa Longueira, the 15-year-old Staten Islander who walked straight into an open manhole last month while exchanging messages with her pals.

"Like, there was no warning about a big open hole!" she told reporters.

The whole teen texting phenom is becoming a gaping manhole of controversy, and educators are increasingly concerned that Longueria is symbolic of her entire generation. Frustrated with students ignoring rules and tapping away at miniature keyboards under their desks, Iowa's St. Ansgar School District recently went so far as to approve installation of a signal jamming device. That is until last week, when school officials discovered that, under FCC regulation, it's illegal to jam cellular signals. Spokane, Washington ran into the same impasse recently, and Pittsburgh's Penn Hills schools blocked signal for three full days before someone alerted the administration that it was breaking federal laws.

CTIA and Harris Interactive published a survey last year called "Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged." According to the report, four out of five teens now carry a wireless device, and teenagers admit to spending an equal amount of time texting as they do talking, with 42 percent boasting that they can text blindfolded. Moreover, 57 percent of teenagers see their cell phones as the key to their social life. Texting "is so important to them," says the report, "that if [it] was no longer an option, 47 percent of teens say their social life would end or be worsened — especially among females."

As for the new language that teens have so easily mastered, a 2007 Washington Post article spelled it out for parents. For instance "o-m-g-i-n-b-d" meant "Oh my gosh it's no big deal." The story's focus, however, was on Verizon and AT&T's recent introduction of unlimited message plans, offered after outrageous $1,000 teen texting bills shocked many parents into angrily switching cellular servers. According to the Post story, in 2006, around 158 billion texts were sent in America, double that of the year before. Now, it's a billion texts per day, and Nielsen recently reported that teens aged 13 to 17 are the biggest texters, sending a whopping average 2,272 messages per month. And that's nothing. Many teenagers openly confess to sending 400–500 texts per day, or 12,000 to 15,000 per month, with parents seemingly unconcerned about their tech-savvy kids' extreme obsession.

Meanwhile, when it comes to texting, Iowa seems to be farming out some of America's finest. In June, 15-year-old Kate Moore from Des Moines won the L.G. National Texting Championship, beating 250,000 competitors and winning a $50,000 cash prize. Aside from thumb speed and accuracy, contestants were asked to message while blindfolded and demonstrate knowledge of SMS acronyms. With the kind of performance this contest certainly demanded, Moore no doubt spent much time sharpening her skills along with her peers on the school clock.

"PAW" (Parents Are Watching) was the only acronym that stumped all the contestants. Go figure.

Photo courtesy of Ken Banks, kiwanja.net.