H8 it or not, teenagers luv texting

By Ed Runyan

Teens and adults have found many advantages in texting compared to calling.

Austintown Fitch senior Britny Bennett cost her parents hundreds of dollars about two years ago by using 3,000 more text messages than her phone plan allowed for the month.

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Britny Bennett

So when The Vindicator arrived at Austintown Community Fitness Center recently, looking for high school students to talk to about the pervasive influence of text messaging on teens, Britny, who was there practicing with her varsity cheerleading squad, knew she had something to say.

“My dad hated it,” she said of those early days about two years ago when she first got into text messaging. “But everything’s OK now.”

It only took one month of overages before she got unlimited texting for about $20 per month, and she’s been happily sending and receiving hundreds of messages per day every since.

Britny is outgoing, but texting is not really about keeping in touch with a large circle of friends, she said. The majority of her texts are to three people.

One of those is her close cheerleading friend Lauren Frost, who Britny texts first thing in the morning, just to find out whether she’s missing any important information for that day, like what time practice is or what she needs to have with her.

Lauren says her circle is a little wider, maybe five people.

But both girls agree they are attracted to texting compared to talking on the phone because of the ease and advantages.

“It’s just easier,” Britny said, describing a typical situation in which she is watching television and texting a friend at the same time.

With texting, you can follow the television program and maintain a conversation with friends, she said. By comparison, focusing on a TV show and talking on the phone simultaneously would be much more difficult, Britny said.

There’s another thing about phone conversations that seems to bother many teens — the “awkward pause.”

Phone conversations inevitably produce times when neither person knows what to say.

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Savannah Young

“You’re like, ‘I’m going to go now,’ said 21-year-old Savannah Young, an employee with the Revol Wireless store on South Raccoon Road in Austintown.

“With texting it’s to the point,” she said. “So like three hours later, you might resume your conversation. If you get a text back, that’s cool, but if not, that’s OK.”

Many of the teens interviewed explained that old-fashioned phone conversations leaves them feeling a little insecure, especially when dealing with someone of the opposite sex.

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Jake Peterson

Jake Peterson, an Austintown Fitch senior who runs cross country and wrestles, said texting a girl seems to work out better than a phone call because it gives him time to think and consider what he wants to say — instead of saying something on the phone he might later regret.

“Maybe you’re not a quick thinker,” Jake said. “Sometimes you can’t think about what you’re going to say” as easily on the phone.

Dan Mooney, a freshman at Howland High School, said texting a girl can be a way to keep his conversations a little more private.

“If you call a girl, she’ll tell her friends, ‘He called me.’ But she’s not going to make a big deal out of it if you text her,” he said.

Howland senior Natalie Teringo admits she’s one of those people who keeps her cell phone with her all day, especially in the summer, keeping in touch with friends unless she’s working or practicing with her cross country team.

“That’s the only time I’m not on it,” she said.

“It’s quicker,” she said of texting compared to phone calls. “Unless it’s like a big, huge to-do,” then a phone call is sometimes necessary to explain the situation more fully.

Fitch texter Britny admits she’s gone overboard a few times trying to put all of the details in a long text — sometimes as long as 25 screens worth of information.

But her friends don’t like receiving long texts, so she avoids it, she said.

Aaron Sutton, a Howland junior, said the most common use he has for texting is to make arrangements for meeting someone. A short text works best.

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Nathan Sutton

Aaron’s younger brother, Nathan, a freshman, said he is like many younger teens who uses instant messaging on his computer. He views texting on a cell phone to be a more mobile way of doing the same thing.

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Travis Gysegem

Howland freshman Travis Gysegem admits that teens sometimes prefer to text their parents rather than talk to avoid answering certain questions.

“Sometimes it’s a way to contact parents because they can’t argue back, especially when they’re in a meeting or something,” he said.

There are other functional advantages of texting, some noted.

For instance, where reception is low or the phone is low on battery power, texting works better.

As Haley Buzulencia, a Howland sophomore, noted, texting is also a bit more stealthy than talking on a phone.

“With texting, you can do it without everybody knowing you’re doing it,” she said.

That fact has led to problems in schools, where cell phones in class are generally forbidden.

As many teens noted, however, phones in school have become as commonplace as pencils and books.

“Pretty much everybody has their phone, but they [teachers] don’t want to see it,” Aaron Sutton said.

Young, the Revol saleswoman, said customers are mostly parents with a teen, and the teen wants unlimited texting foremost. Unlimited calling is a distant second. Children getting phones generally start at about age 12, she said.

Young, who said she only got her first cell phone about three years ago, said she too considers texting more important than calling.

She noted that her two bosses, who are in their 30s, also use messaging to send bulk messages to employees, which works out better than other forms of communication because it gives the receiver options.

She can receive messages from her boss on a day off from work and then decide whether to respond to it right away or wait until she’s working again.

“At least we [her and co-workers] know what’s going on,” she said.

runyan@vindy.com