Perils of Texting

Pause to Ponder, LG’s new campaign educating teens on the downsides of impulsive texting/ sexting might have been better targeted to celebrities and politicians given today’s article in the New York Times: Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar

But the lesson for parents is this: we’ve been banging on about the wrong thing, or at least missing the point. We’ve been teaching our kids about the dangers of leaving “digital footprints” all over the internet - footprints that could return to haunt them when they apply for college, go on job interviews or even run for President - when it turns out that the real danger is texting. Texting is by far the preferred teen medium. It’s their top communications activity (1) and they send and receive about 80 messages a day (2). What is particularly worrying is that texts are not as ephemeral as we think. Phone companies keep them for up to 5 days and they are routinely being used as evidence in court cases – a trend that is expected to increase given the prevalence of texting.

Stay tuned to this blog for resources on how to teach kids good texting values. And, in the meantime, as James Lipton says: pause to ponder before you text.

(1) Pew Research Center; (2) Nielsen Company