Texting, Social Networking, and Sex

Texting is a big part of how we communicate with one another nowadays. While texting may seem like a relatively harmless activity (aside from the people that text while they drive and end up killing others or themselves), a recent study done by the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has found a correlation between texting and drugs and sex in teens.

Dr. Frank Scott, the leader of this research group, suggests that teens whom send on average 120 times a day or more are more likely engage in sex, drink, or try drugs (as opposed to their peers who don't). Dr. Scott's reasoning? It's all about parental control.

Scott says that parents who spend time monitoring what their children are doing on social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) and cell phone usage will be more in tune to what their teen is doing in their spare time.

This study, which is discussed in an article posted by Atlanta's newspaper, goes on to say that Scott conducted this research by asking students at 20 public schools in Cleveland to answer questions anymously. He found that one out of five students fall into the category of "hyper-texters," (the ones who send lots of messages), and one out of nine are "hyper-networkers" (those who spend three or more hours on social networking sites a day). To see more of Scott's results, go to the article and read on.

This is quite interesting to me, and as a researcher from Iowa State pointed out, Scott has raised a "legitimate question to [be] explore[d]." I have not heard of a research of this kind being done before, and it will neat to see what all comes out of this.

Scott mentions that the relation between parents' involvement and teen's recreational activities is affected by how involved or not a parent is in their child's life. While this seems like a good idea, I personally never left my phone alone long enough for my parents to even have a chance to look through it, or see what I was doing. I would assume that most other teens are/were like that as well.

I look forward to seeing what more Scott finds out about texting and sex/drugs/alcohol, and whether he publishes anything about sexual networking and sex/drugs/alcohol. What do you think? Do you agree with Scott's findings, or do you think that teens are just engaging in what many teens engage in? While I think this may ring true for some teens, I don't see it being overly common amongst all the teens that send 120 texts a day.