It's funny that the day after AOL's survey on teens and IMing was released, there is a new survey out about how teens are using texting -- and guess what? It's sort of similar, at least in terms of teens texting and IMing more than adults and using it to flirt/date and say stuff they wouldn't want to say in person.

- Teens and young adults use text messaging more than any other demographic. People ages 13-24 send and receive the most - more than 50 messages per week - while half of all survey respondents use text messaging at least once a week.

- 54 percent of 13-34 year olds use SMS for social networking, while 44 percent of 13-34 year olds said they use text messaging for flirting or dating, and 10 percent of 13-34 year olds said they have broken up with a boy or girl friend using text messaging.

Sort of related, at least to texting, is a quote I pulled from one of danah's posts about teens and cell phone plans at Blyk's blog (which I mentioned yesterday as well):

Teens know who is on what plan, who can be called after 7PM, who can be called after 9PM, who can receive texts, who is over their texting for the month, etc. It’s part of their mental model of their social network and knowing this is a core exchange of friendship.

Psychologically, all-you-can-eat plans change everything. Rather than having to mentally calculate the number of texts sent and received (because the phones rarely do it for you and the carriers like to make that info obscure), a floodgate of opportunities is suddenly opened. The weights are lifted and freedom reigns. The result? Zero to a thousand text messages in under a month! Those on all-you-can-eat plans go hog wild. Every mundane thought is transmitted and the phones go buzz buzz buzz. Those with restrictive plans are treated with caution, left out of the fluid communication flow and brought in for more practical or content-filled purposes (or by sig others who ignore these norms and face the ire of parents).

And more loosely related, is this commentary from ComputerWorld on how all this buzz buzz buzzing all the time is contributing to "junk sleep."

Posted by anastasia