Today's Ypulse Guest Post is from Jessica Gross, a senior editor at the college review site Unigo. As a twentysomething, Jessica weighs in on our generation's text obsession and whether recent legislation really gets to the heart of the matter. If you work in youth media or marketing and have an idea for a Ypulse Guest Post, feel free to email me.

Our Texting-at-the-Wheel (and Everywhere Else) Generation

If you're a texting addict, you might be out of luck: a fifth of states now prohibit sending those OMGs and LOLs from behind the wheel.

Earlier this month, Mississippi and Maryland joined eight other states and D.C. in passing bans on text messaging while driving. This is no small matter: if you're caught doing the deed, you could pay $500. Some people think the laws are too invasive; others think it's obvious that drivers — especially teens just starting out — need to keep their eyes on the road.

But the bigger question is: how did we get here? When I was a teenager, only a few years ago, I was a non-texter. Phone calls? Sure. Email? Sure. But texting? It took me 10 minutes to write a sentence! My brother, only three years younger, was addicted by his teen years. He can now proudly maintain eye contact with me while composing an entire text message.

We've been swallowed by a texting epidemic. The texting-while-driving bans popping up all over the country are a testament to teens' obsession. But this isn't a surprise to anyone who's spent more than a few minutes talking to a teenager and heard the "beep beep beep beep!" announcing a text — or to teens themselves, who are well aware of their dependency.

Last month, one 15-year-old interviewed for a Washington Post article (reg. required) described texting every moment of the day — except while she's at sports practice, in the shower, or eating dinner with her family (I bet her parents had a joyful time enforcing that rule). "I would die without it," she said.

According to the same article, American teenagers with cell phones send an average of 2,272 text messages a month. That's 75 texts a day — or, for a teen who sleeps seven hours a night, a text every 13 minutes. That is a lot of texting. And if those numbers don't make you raise your eyebrows ("75 texts a day? I send hundreds!",) I'd consider yourself inducted into the text-addict crew.

What does all this texting mean for teens? The Post article raises some concerns. Will teens' attention span and family life suffer? Will they — as lawmakers fear — get in even more car accidents because they can't tear their eyes away from their phones? And, worst of all: will their spelling suffer?

We won't know the answers until our texting generation is all grown up. The more interesting question right now is why we can't seem to take a break: not at the wheel, not in class — sometimes, not even while we're in bed and drifting off to sleep. We keep our phones in our pockets or in our handbags, accessible at all times. If we're talking to someone, face-to-face, and we hear that telltale ring, we grab our phones in a frenzy. We must see who's summoning us!

It’s not just an obsession with texting. It's email, Facebook, and now Twitter, too. Back in the day, people would check their email a few times a week, maybe daily. Now, if we can tear ourselves away for a few hours, we’re heroes and heroines. And God forbid we should miss Tammy's post on Barney's wall popping up in our Facebook newsfeeds! It's a matter of life or death!

At the wheel, at least, it could be.

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More about Jessica

Jessica Gross is a Senior Editor at Unigo, an online college guide. An aspiring journalist and new media enthusiast, she graduated from Princeton in 2007 with a degree in anthropology. Jessica blogs at The People Watcher. If you have any questions or inquiries, feel free to contact her.

Categorized under: Mobile

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