Txtin hrts

May 27, 2009 at 9:28 am Leave a comment

An acute drop in grammatical standards due to rampant texting may not be the only cause of worry for parents and teachers – NYT reports that going overboard with texting has serious psychological implications for teenagers, and it’s beginning to take a toll on their health.

Texting seems to show no signs of stagnation, in fact it has doubled over the past year, fuelled primarily by the rise in the number of unlimited texting plans.

Parents, you might want to take a closer look at your teen’s phone bill.

Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm.