Texting As Addictive

Kate Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll” claims that texting is an issue to teenagers around the world. As an illustration, Hafner starts the article by identifying that teenagers send a drastic amount of texts in their everyday lives. according to the Nielsen Company, “American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008”(1). This is just one of the examples of many that portrays teenagers around the world send many text messages. Along with teenagers sending many texts a day, hafner also shows in this article that texting is affecting teenager's life in many different ways for example, preventing teenagers' way of becoming independent. Just as professor Turkle presented,

In Michaela Cullington’s essay titled, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” the author tests the ongoing question of how today’s youth handles the effects of texting in the education system. Using successful evidence from both sides of the argument as well as participating in her own experiment, Cullington is able to fully demonstrate how texting does not interfere with today’s students and their abilities to write formally in the classroom.

Texting has fast become the preferred form of communication for young adults; however, students need to be dissuaded from texting during class because of the result in loss of valuable class time, lack of effective communication skills, and consistent use of improper English leading to a negative impact on students’ learning.

The article “Compulsive Texting Takes Toll on Teenager” was published on New York Times, on Oct 5th. This article was written by the author, Roni Caryn Rabin. Mr. Rabin informs us about the effects that compulsive texting has on teens and more specifically the effect it has on academics. However, the author informsus that texting all the time has a very bad negative side effect. Therefore, compulsive texting negatively impacts grades, sleep, and could increase anxiety. Also, many compulsive texters show the same signs as people with addiction or gambling problems. The author also informs us that several studies have been made among students on how texting affects their academic work. This study examines the relations among frequency of compulsive texting and also students academic achievement. Many researchers have cited potential consequences associated with a high frequency of texting and problematic texting behaviors.

Texting has turned into one of the largest distractions in the world. People are constantly preoccupied with their phones, checking social networks, and text messages. Studies say that 21% of teen drivers involved in fatal accidents were distracted by cell phones and this statistic

Almost a generation of teens have access to a phone with text messages. They spend so much time shorting words, they lose the ability to be literate. Teenagers today are more worried about their phones, in school or out of school, causing them to drop their grades and get them in lots of trouble.

Texting is the most dangerous distraction because it requires visual, manual, and cognitive attention ("Facts and Statistics").

Katie Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll,” displays that the rising number of texts sent by adolescents day in and day out is starting to take a big toll on them, their lifestyle, and the people around them. To start off, in the first part of the article Hafner expresses that the point of the first section is that with a growing number of young people utilizing texting and using it nonstop texting is causing serious issues such as anxiety, failing grades, distraction in school, sleep issues and many others. The author exclaims in the section that, “The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.”

Often times an ad pops up while I use the computer for writing and I see that the main target audience is always young adults. Our brains being less developed is a main factor for young adults to form an addiction to texting. I agree with Richtel’s explanation on how our prefrontal cortex is less developed, so we are more likely prone to addiction. Also the younger we are, the less experienced we are at approaching life in the right ways. Richtel also gives examples of how we get a rush from responding to a text and once we stop doing it our brain is left feeling bored and lost. I agree with this explanation personally because whenever I have something really important coming up I see myself waiting for that certain individual to text me, no matter the time of day.

In Katie Hafner's “Texting May be Taking a Toll”, she elucidates how teenagers are focusing on what is happening on their phones rather than what matters most.The first point the author is trying to make is teenagers texting too much which is causing distractions, failing grades, and sleep deprivation throughout the day. The author states, physicians and psychologists worry “... it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation”(1). This is stating, teenagers are not paying enough attention to school work or how they are doing physically, but instead are paying attention to who texted them and what is happening. Also, the author is expressing texting can be a tool for many but may

Luigi Gallimberti, et. al discusses in their article “Problematic Cell Phone Use for Text Messaging and Substance Abuse in Early Adolescence (11- to 13-year-olds),” that problematic cell phone use (PCPU), is associated with psychological distress, low self-esteem, depression, drug abuse, insomnia, and thoughts of suicide (356). The overuse of cellphones can really detriment a person mentally and could cause them to arrive at one of these issues stated. An issue also arises when a person with a cell phone addiction is in school. They tend to remain unfocused while on their phones and they don’t participate during class. In a sample, the students who had better test grades were less likely to have a problematic cell phone addiction (Gallimberti, et. al 360). This finding confirms the positive association between cell phone addiction and poor performance in school. In schools, it was concluded that this overuse of cellphones was positively connected with deficient school performance in teens with an average age of 15.7 years old (Gallimberti, et. al 360). Aviad Hadar studies in his article “Answering the Missed Call: Initial Exploration of Cognitive and Electrophysiological Changes Associated With Smartphone Use and Abuse” that cell phone addiction was studied to be linked with reduced attention, changes in how someone processes, stores, and applies information about other people and social

Though the power of text messaging has many benefits to it, the misuse of this technology can cause serious problems for society. With the ability to communicate instantaneously on a mobile device, society focuses more and more on their

Texting has many effects. When I think of texting many dangerous and unethical behaviors come to mind. We all know texting has a brief history, many people prefer texting to talking on the phone, and texting has its own problems when misuse. When we are texting communication is lost and is in considered of others and mostly affecting people’s health.

Thesis: While it has been commonly assumed that texting has had a significant negative impact on student’s literacy rates, others argue and support the use of texting as it has imprinted a positive impact depending on the situation.

The “Effects of Text Messaging on College Students’ Perceptions of Personal Health” article just like the two articles all seem to say that texting can have a negative effect on students. “Even though most college students agree that face-to-face communication is more helpful than a text message, college students’ behaviors still favor text messaging.” (Massimini &