Texting is Addiction

There at it all day and night. There doing it when everybody’s fast asleep. There doing it at the dinner table. Most do it in school at lunch and even in class with the teacher in there. Students are addicted to texting and do it everywhere.

Texting has become a worldwide trend which almost everyone participates in, especially teenagers. And unlimited plans offered by companies like AT&T, Version, and Samsung aren’t making it better.  In 2008 according to the Nielsen Company teenagers send at least 2,272 text messages per month. That’s a total of 27,264 texts a year.

But physicians and psychologists say texting isn’t good for you. They say it can lead to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., gave a survey to students at two different high schools and learned they send hundreds of text every single day.

Professionals say that adolescences are supposed to grow up, find a job and live a peaceful life but texting has become an obstacle in that process. But since technology makes it easier to stay in contact with somebody teens are texting parents at least 15 times asking meaningless questions.

 Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist at Oakland, Calif., says teens have an understandable interest in phones and texting because they can be in the loop, communicate to their friends. This gives texting great benefits and harm.

It’s said texting is doing damage to teenager’s thumbs. An example is how Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on a small LG phone as fast as she did on a keyboard. Then she started noticing cramps in her thumbs. Now she has the iPhone and she says texting is slower and less painful.

Peter W. Johnson and professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington said “it’s too early to determine if this type of stress is damaged. But he also added “Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs.”

Another amazing texting story is how Greg Hardesty reported that his 13-year-old daughter Reina sent 14,528 in a single month. She would have the phone on when she went to bed, getting up to answer her friend’s replies. Then when her texting was put in the paper her texts increased to 24,000 but when her grades started failing the phone was taking by her parents.

Eventually she was given the phone back when she improved her grades but her texting was limited.

In conclusion texting is activity that is greatly enjoyed by teens everywhere and shouldn’t be stopped but there should limits to how much and how long they text but the limits wouldn’t be that strict.