It’s no secret that teenagers love to text. In fact, roughly 63% of teens text daily and the average teenager in the U.S. sends 30 texts a day. But a “compulsive texter” sends well beyond those 30 texts. A compulsive texter is defined as someone who has tried and failed to cut back on how much they text, becomes defensive if they’re confronted about the frequency of their texting, and may feel frustrated and irritable when they can’t text.
A new study published in Psychology of Popular Media reveals that while teen boys and girls engage in roughly the same amount of texting everyday, girls that are compulsive texters seem to suffer academically, while boys who were identified as compulsive texters did not experience any negative impact on their school performance due to that behavior. And girls were found to be far more likely to compulsively text than boys.
So why are girls more negatively affected by this type of compulsive behavior?
Researchers hypothesize that it’s due to the fact that girls have a greater desire to stay in contact with their friends and see texting as a way to maintain relationships. This comes down to the social development differences between boys and girls, with girls placing a greater emphasis on nurturing relationships. Girls are socialized to feel a greater responsibility for everyone’s happiness, and anxiety can set in if they feel things are getting off-kilter.
The type of texts girls send throughout the day also plays a role. Boys primarily use texting to relay information to their friends whereas girls use it as a means to keep up their relationships so more emotions may be involved in their texting. Researchers think that teen girls are more prone to “engage in rumination or obsessive, preoccupied thinking…focusing on their intimacy” in their relationships.
And that type of distraction throughout the day can wreck havoc on their academic performance.
If you suspect your teen girl may be a compulsive texter, there are some things you can do to help.
- Have a heart to heart to get to the core issues. Remind her that her relationships shouldn’t be the basis for her self-esteem.
- Help her find an activity, club or sport to join so that she can find something beyond relationships to help boost her self-esteem.
- Plan more family activities. This can be as simple as planning a family outing every week (like a movie, bowling or ice skating), cooking meals together, or trying a yoga class together. You can always check out our calendar for a list of activities geared toward teens. But the phone shouldn’t make an appearance during these times.
- Researchers also suggest that taking the phone away altogether isn’t a good idea. This will only make her more desperate and could lead to more texting. Instead, set firm rules for when she can access her phone, and phone time is off-limits when she’s doing homework or engaging in any sport or extra curricular activity.
- Finally, avoid insinuating that what she’s doing is “wrong” because she could interpret it as “the way you feel about your relationships is wrong”. You want her to understand that you know her friendships are important to her, but that it’s equally as important for her to not base her entire self-worth on how well she maintains those relationships.
