I'm going to ask again...
Why does a 14 year old girl NEED a cell phone?
I'm going to ask again...
Why does a 14 year old girl NEED a cell phone?
what point are you trying to prove? no one said she NEEDS it. kids have all sorts of crap they don't NEED. do they need a closetful of clothes? no, four or five outfits and one pair of shoes is "technically" more than enough. but we live in america and this is a prosperous society. as times change, so do the toys and luxuries.
now shut up!
My parents got me a cell phone during track season freshman year of high school so I could communicate with about when I would be home from meets, because there was no way to know when they would end or if the bus would be delayed. They didn't add texting to the plan until I had jaw surgery and couldn't speak clearly for several weeks. Given those situations, cell phones with texting are very useful. In many cases, parents give their kids phones as a means of keeping track of them, and so they have something valuable to confiscate as punishment. I once heard a dad joke that he wanted to buy his daughter a car when she got her license so he could take away the keys if she misbehaved.
That said, why anyone would need to send 4,000 texts a month is beyond me. I tend to see my friends in person most days, and Facebook and e-mail are enough for staying in touch with those I don't see so often.
In this week's Time there was a statistic saying that the average American teenager sends around 80 texts per day. I imagine it's similar over here in Britain. That's a lot of texting...how don't they get RSIs on their thumbs?!
whats her number, I will straighten her out for you.
It is threads like this that make me thankful I am not a teenager anymore and subject to my parents' arbitrary rules.
4,000 text messages. OK, so what? You said her homework is done. It doesn't cost anything. Sounds like you want to regulate how she spends her free time.
The people in this thread who have a problem with this haven't given a reason other than "gee, that sounds like too many". You're just overprotective parents looking to control one more aspect of your children's lives.
If an issue arises, deal with it, otherwise you're inventing a problem where there is none. Let the girl be. Don't just set rules for the sake of setting rules.
Or it could be more like
texted messanger wrote:
The text messages were probably something like:
Her: Hi
Pal: Hi
Her: Where RU
Pal: Math
Her: OK
Pal: Suxs
Her: Yeah
Pal: Sex @ 5?
Her: OK
Pal: OK
I think the above 10 lines count as 10 messages. The entire message thread would take less than one minute to finish.
30 wrote:
It is threads like this that make me thankful I am not a teenager anymore and subject to my parents' arbitrary rules.
4,000 text messages. OK, so what? You said her homework is done. It doesn't cost anything. Sounds like you want to regulate how she spends her free time.
The people in this thread who have a problem with this haven't given a reason other than "gee, that sounds like too many". You're just overprotective parents looking to control one more aspect of your children's lives.
If an issue arises, deal with it, otherwise you're inventing a problem where there is none. Let the girl be. Don't just set rules for the sake of setting rules.
Whoa...somebody had crappy parents.
Anybody sending more than 2-3 texts a day does not really have a life. Think about it. If a kid is sending that many text messages a day I can assure you that they are breaking rules and ignoring responsibilities.
I'm currently treating a middle school girl for wrist pain at a PT clinic. She can barely move her wrist and hand during treatment, but the second she's not being treated anymore, or if I leave the room for a nanosecond, she'll break out her phone and be texting when I return. Seriously. Watch out for overuse injuries, apparently.
From the NY Times
Texting May Be Taking a Toll
...
Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.
The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.
...
Full test here
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/26teen.html?_r=1&ref=science
I sent/received almost 7000 messages last month, and I'm in my 40s. It's the easiest way to reach co-workers when they're on the jobsite where phonecalls can be annoying. The beauty of the text message is that they can be answered when it's convenient. I rarely talk on my cellphone; i text almost everything anymore.
I thought 7000 was excessive until I saw that my 16-year-old son had sent/received just over 13,000.
I think both the 10 lines of text and the sex would each take less than one minute to finish. These are teens after all.
texting wrote:
Or it could be more like
texted messanger wrote:
The text messages were probably something like:
Her: Hi
Pal: Hi
Her: Where RU
Pal: Math
Her: OK
Pal: Suxs
Her: Yeah
Pal: Sex @ 5?
Her: OK
Pal: OK
I think the above 10 lines count as 10 messages. The entire message thread would take less than one minute to finish.
Sushi Master wrote:
30 wrote:It is threads like this that make me thankful I am not a teenager anymore and subject to my parents' arbitrary rules.
4,000 text messages. OK, so what? You said her homework is done. It doesn't cost anything. Sounds like you want to regulate how she spends her free time.
The people in this thread who have a problem with this haven't given a reason other than "gee, that sounds like too many". You're just overprotective parents looking to control one more aspect of your children's lives.
If an issue arises, deal with it, otherwise you're inventing a problem where there is none. Let the girl be. Don't just set rules for the sake of setting rules.
Whoa...somebody had crappy parents.
you?
I wonder how people did business 10-15 years ago. People were probably not very productive back then!!
over-40 something wrote:
I sent/received almost 7000 messages last month, and I'm in my 40s. It's the easiest way to reach co-workers when they're on the jobsite where phonecalls can be annoying. The beauty of the text message is that they can be answered when it's convenient. I rarely talk on my cellphone; i text almost everything anymore.
I thought 7000 was excessive until I saw that my 16-year-old son had sent/received just over 13,000.
rayL wrote:
Anybody sending more than 2-3 texts a day does not really have a life. Think about it. If a kid is sending that many text messages a day I can assure you that they are breaking rules and ignoring responsibilities.
You must be a troll because your reply is ridiculous. Please explain to me how spending an hour a day communicating with one's friends necessarily means that one is breaking rules or ignoring responsibilities.
The guy who was glad to get away from controlling parents is right. Texting is not the issue, the effects of texting are. So if your daughter is doing fine in school and generally happy, then there is no problem.
There are a few too many worker bees on this thread that think anything other than doing chores 24 hours a day is sinful - these are the people who are scared of these devil cell phones, and teenagers, and girls, and people that have fun, and anything other than their little well defined, overcontrolled world. In most cases these people are so uncertain of their moral fortitude that they try to control others, so as to avoid temptation. In other cases, they have such existential angst at their own purposelessness that they overcompensate by eschewing all fun or relaxation. Either way it is small minded. Live and let live people.
Nicely said Monica. I was going to go for something along that angle but would probably used more swearing, infantile put-downs and personal attacks. So probably best if I just said x2 on what you said.
trollism wrote:
Nicely said Monica. I was going to go for something along that angle but would probably used more swearing, infantile put-downs and personal attacks. So probably best if I just said x2 on what you said.
So I would say that both of you are actually students who also seem to have the disease of 'entitlement". There are not many schools in america today that allow cell phone use during school hours. So explain how you can send over 4,000 texts in a month while also likely IMing, facebooking, talking on your cell, talking face to face, etc unless a good portion of that is done at school? That's my point but if you think that makes me a troll that is your right. Talk about smallminded......
I would say that you're not a student and you have the disease of 'being a self-righteous bell-end'.
Do we know if her grades are suffering because of it? No.
It's already been explained how 4000 messages (sent or received) can be reached without it actually being that huge a deal. So we don't know whether a 'good portion' is being done at school.
(Damn it, one childish insult, but you remind me a lot of Flagpole so in my mind it was warrented.)
ray wrote:
Talk about smallminded......
That word - I do not think it means what you think it means.