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To Text or Not To Text? That is the Question.

By: Talya Rosensweig

+Ask the class!

Does your phone come with instant-messaging techniques?

How often do you instant message per a day?

Do you know anybody in your life who does NOT instant message?

+ Introduction:

The current generation of adolescence are a generation of teenagers who communicate heavily via instant-messaging communication. Gone is the old classic stereotype of adolescent girls chatting endlessly with their friends on telephones. Instead, it has been replaced by both males and females alike texting and instant messaging their friends all day long in various forms

+Influential Elements:

1. Emotional

2. Developmental

3. Cognitive

4. Societal

5. Familial

+Why are we even discussing this?

Observations Differences over past 8 years.

+Losing Touch

“When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.”

-Marshall McLuhan.

+Pascal: “The Greatest of our Miseries”

“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries , and yet is it itself the greatest of our miseries”

-17th  century  French philosopher Blaise Pascal

+What does this include?

Instant messaging would include all current forms of instant communication, such as (but not limited to) Aol Instant Messenger (AIM), Google Chat (Gchat) Facebook messaging, Black Berry Messenger (BBMing), WhatsApp Messenger (WhatsApp) Twitter Text messaging.

+ Developmental

3 main areas of change: Biological Cognitive Social

• Occurs everywhere. No matter where the adolescent lives.

Subrahmanyam and Smahel (2011)

+Biological Development

Puberty

Height,

Weight,

Sexual maturation

+Cognitive Development

Thinking in abstract forms

Develop the skills to think and reason about various life situations

Areas in the brain, especially the frontal lobe, are still in the process of majorly developing during the adolescent years

+Social Development

Adolescents are able to drive, drop out of school, take up a job, join the army, start dating, be sexually active, and even get married

“Achieving new and more mature relations with age-mates of both sexes – As their bodies change physically and sexually with the onset of puberty, adolescents have to learn to establish new relations with their age mates, both boys and girls. Social activities and social experimentation become pre-eminent and help them learn adult social skills leading to good social adjustment throughout their lives.” (p. 28)

“Establishing interpersonal connections—both those with peers, such as friendships and romantic relationships, and those with parents, siblings and other adults outside the family—is one of the most important developmental tasks of adolescence” (p.6)

-Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (2008)

+ Effects of Instant-Messaging on Adolescent Development

If this is true, then it is important to look at how instant messaging is effecting the establishment of interpersonal connections, as well as how an adolescent constructs his or her identity

+History:

Scientific capability to send a text message began to be available in the mid 1980’s

1995 the average amount of text messages per a customer per a month, was .4.

2000, approximately thirty-five text messages were being sent per a customer per a month

2001, 12.1 billion text messages were sent.

2004, approximately 24 billion had been sent.

In 2006, phone companies reported that on Christmas day itself, over 205 million text messages had been sent out in the United Kingdom.

+ TODAY:

In today’s society, almost all adolescents seem to have their own phones or smart phones.

According to market research done in 2011 on adolescents between the ages of thirteen through nineteen, seventy-nine percent had mobile phones, and fifteen percent had smart phones.

According to Coyne et al 2011, “every day, over a billion text messages are sent through mobile phones around the world” (p.150).

“From October through December 2006, Verizon Wireless hosted 17.7 billion text messages, more than double the total from the same period in 2005. (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, 2008, p. 4).

According to Ling (2004) a study done in 2002 indicated that more then 85% of teens and young adults send at least 1 text message per a day.

+Statstics from Virgin Mobile, USA:

More than 9/10 teens with cell phones have text messaging capability;

2/3 use text messages daily.

More than ½ of Virgin’s customers aged 15-20 send or receive at least 11 text messages a day,

Nearly 1/5 text 21 times a day or more.

+Frequency of Computer Based Instant Messaging

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (2005), IM usage is so popular among adolescents, that 75% of them use it and 65% report that they use IM to communicate with their friends.

Kraut et al. (2006) writes that when exploring what three main activities adolescents are attending online, they “devoted the bulk of their time online to three domains: IM (M= 38.97 minutes, SD- 42.8), visiting web sites (M = 33.10 minutes, SD= 29.4) and email (M=21.70 minutes, SD = 16.5). “(p.186)

Instant messaging is the top most popular use of the Internet, according to Kraut et al. (2006).

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The “iGeneration” sends and receives 3,339 texts a month, which translates into more than six messages every waking hour while making and receiving only 191 phone calls. Interestingly enough, this is in contrast, to just a few years ago, in 2009, when adolescents sent and received about the same number of text messages as phone calls. (Rosen, 2011)

Now we must explore what this means!

+Gender Differences:

Males: 1 hour, 47 minutes: Most common between ages 13 – 15 Most frequently send short text messages – often only

one word

Females: 1 hour 46 minutes. Most common between ages 16- 19 Sends an average of 9 per a day Most frequently send longer, emotionally based

messages.

+Positive Social Effects:

Kraute (2006) – it is actually BENIFICIAL to adolescents Gives the overall feeling of allowing teenagers to “build

and maintain social ties with particular friends as well as to create a sense of belonging with groups of peers with whom they do not necessarily feel close”

Way to deal with concerns in adolescence: Sexual identity Race Gender Romantic Relationships

+Positive Social Effects Continued: Helps adolescents in relieving social anxieties

They feel safer in disclosing personal information

They feel a greater sense of privacy and less of a fear of rejection.

Adolescents feel less socially anxious, therefore, they are more easily able to form relationships with various peers

- Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (2008)

+World Effects:

An adolescents’ online and offline worlds are psychologically connected.” (Subrahmanyam et al 2011, p. 27).

IM venues create their own culture and develop their own norms, as part of that culture

To adolescents, the virtual world is just as real as the “real” world, and that this is the reason that the challenges and tasks are exhibiting themselves in the “online world” as well.

Adolescents have formed a self-set of rules of what is acceptable as content of a text message and what isn’t. What can be a prank message and what is a serious message Appropriate to call VS. appropriate to respond via text message.

+CONS:

The online environment of chatting in an anonymous way instantly can be healthy and socially building for some. Yet for others, it can be a pathological web of lies and deceit.

42% of participants in their study reported that they pretended to be somebody else when instant messaging with others.

82 out of 95 participants pretended to be an older person

There is never any real identifiable information about the person that the chatting conversation is with

+Cons Continued:

Bullying

Time spent with others

Family structure - Parent’s not savvy enough

Illegal activities Prostitution Smuggling Cheating Home alone parties

+Cons Continued

Substituting face-to-face conversations for instant messaging conversations

“Teens feel less psychologically close to their instant messaging partners than to their partners in phone and face-to-face interactions.  Teens also find instant messaging less enjoyable than, but as supportive as, phone or face-to-face interactions. “ ( Subrahmanyam and Greenfield(2008)

According to Kraute et al (2006) - “they report enjoying instant messaging conversations substantially less than those conducted by phone or in person.” (p.15)

+Cons Continued:

Text messages tend to focus on the detail oriented aspects such as who, what, where and when, and do not focus as much on the how, the why, and the emotions of a person.

“Mobile (telephoning) equals SMS for me, nothing more.”

+Cons continued:

Talking to strangers! Still quite immature – disclosing private information

School Environments Norway (1999) – 24% used mobile during class

Effects on Sleep patterns: 20% send and receive texts after midnight “It seems that today’s youth have replaced the flashlight

with a mobile telephone when hiding under the covers. Instead of solitary reading, they are engaged in social networking”(p. 151).

+Developmental Issues:

Constantly being “on”. “Always online, always connected and some even say

“never alone” Adolescents are thus able to access emails, instant

messages and even their social networking site profiles from their cell phones and smart devices, at home, at school, or while on the move.”

Identity issues - confusing!

+Discussion:

The question with anything that is relatively new, is does it help or hinder the growth of the adolescent? Is there cause for concern? Or is worrying worthless?

“Are digital worlds giving rise to new behaviors or are adolescents’ transferring traditional adolescent behaviors onto them? What are some of the opportunities, challenges, and dangers that come with technology use? How can we ensure that young people use technology safely?”

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More than ½ of adolescents contact their peers and family members via instant messaging technology on a daily basis.

Interestingly, Lenhart, Ling, Campbell, & Purcell, (2010) study noted that adolescents tend to communicate more frequently via technology then they do face to face.

75% of teenagers who use cell phones have service plans for unlimited text messaging, and 54% contact friends daily via text messaging” (Lenhart et al., 2010).

+Thoughts?

Policies?

Classroom effects Rules and regulation Telegraphic speech

+Socially:

Not being challenged to deal with it! Scaffolding

Dual ; identities

+Clinically?

Study done @ NSC&FG 20 – 4 Meeting the client where they are at?

+Cultural Competence? ½ Shabbos

Survey of 1,200 teenagers in modern Orthodox institutions was completed. 17.7% were reported texting on Shabbos.

“ Frankly, even were I a secular parent, I would tear my hair out if a child told me that he or she could not go twenty-five hours without SMSing instant messages to his or her friends. “I’m addicted,” they say. Can there be a greater confession of total inner emptiness than these teenagers’ terror of being alone for a moment to contemplate, or their inability to create a personal identity apart from the approval of their friends?”

Churches

+Questions?

. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-XiSIGPIi7s - Day to Disconnect